


Song of the Beasts

by DarkAthena (seraphim_grace), keire_ke



Series: Lost Boys [1]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fae, Alternate Universe - Fusion, Anal Play, Anal Sex, Arranged Marriage, Canon-Typical Violence, F/M, High School, Incubus!stiles, M/M, Multi, Murder, Oral Fixation, Oral Sex, Other, Pack, Politics, Popularity, Underage Drinking, Underage Sex, Violence, Werewolf Politics, incubus, lost girl - Freeform, lycanthropy, political alliance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-03-09
Updated: 2014-09-16
Packaged: 2017-12-04 19:13:12
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Underage
Chapters: 8
Words: 41,498
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/714071
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seraphim_grace/pseuds/DarkAthena, https://archiveofourown.org/users/keire_ke/pseuds/keire_ke
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stiles is an underage incubus caught up in fae politics with no idea what it means to be fae. Luckily, Laura Hale, his local alpha, is willing to take him in, and offers her brother to keep him fed. Unfortunately not everyone is happy with that turn of events, and so Stiles must learn what it is to be an incubus and what it means to be pack.</p><p>A fusion with Lost Girl</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Seven Minutes in Heaven

**Author's Note:**

> Stiles is a walking consent issue in this fic, so we will state that although some scenes may be defined as dubious consent it is never taken further without full bodied and unequivocal consent. I.e. just because Stiles' incubus pheromones might cause someone to want something they wouldn't normally want, Stiles doesn't take them up on it. Both Derek and Stiles can, and sometimes do, refuse.
> 
> As Stiles is an incubus who needs to have sex to survive, he cannot rely solely on Derek for this, so it is a universe where fidelity does not mean monogamy. 
> 
> This is a 'verse set in the Lost Girl universe, but with Teen Wolf specific parameters. For some of the aspects of the mythology we referenced Night Watch/Day Watch/Twilight Watch/Last Watch by Sergei Lukyanenko.
> 
> Following the S3 premier we have retconned Deucalion to fit his description in the show.
> 
> Title from [Song of the Beasts ](http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-song-of-the-beasts/) by Rupert Brooke  
> (read it out loud to see why)
> 
> DarkAthena's tumblr is [ here ](http://athenadark.tumblr.com/) and Keire_ke's is [here ](http://keire-ke.tumblr.com/)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Through a series of crazy coincidences (which sounds like the plot of many a yaoi anime) it turned out that this is not the only fic where it's crossed with lost girl where stiles is an incubus, there is another one by Glitterfics called "You are a fever (ya aint typical) available here  
> http://archiveofourown.org/works/769016  
> Now the point of this note is that the two stories whilst appearing very similar are very different, it's like two people showing up to the same party wearing the same dress, but nothing more.  
> Where the two fics are similar is in the opening feed (the subject of this chapter) because this is what happens in the first episode of Lost Girl
> 
> You should read Glitterfics' fic, but it is not the same as this one. I don't know, or care, which of them came first, but mostly it has to do with Season 3 of Lost Girl just airing in the UK. She didn't know about this one and we didn't know about hers until it appeared on Ao3. So yes, we know about it, so does she. But we're taking the opportunity to pwn this, coincidences happen and that's all this is. 
> 
> She has not copied us, we have not copied her, it's just the same idea which we have both taken in very different directions (which you can see as soon as you get reading either of them). Accusations are not welcome.

Stiles never would have imagined that Seven Minutes in Heaven could end in the Intensive Care Ward, or what came after.

Lydia had thrown a party and Stiles had only been invited because she felt guilty that Jackson had fallen badly in lacrosse, taking Stiles down with him, and Stiles' wrist had snapped like a twig. Jackson was, of course, physically incapable of apologizing but it had resulted in Lydia Martin, goddess of Beacon Hills High and Jackson's girlfriend, walking up to Stiles in the corridor outside Harris' lab and saying, "I am throwing a small party on Friday evening." She flicked her hair out over her shoulder (it was practically a signature gesture and didn't in any way make her look less like a 40's Hollywood queen who had never had so much as a hair out of place), and added, "please dress appropriately." And Scott looked at him like the heavens had parted and Ryan Gosling had passed in front of them dressed like a Pokemon and singing the hokey cokey, because that was about as likely as Lydia Martin inviting him to a party.

So Stiles had put on a brand new tee, that was a sort of a sea green that Scott's Mom swore made his skin look warm, and a matching blue plaid, because he didn't want to dress up to the nines to be turned away at the door, because although he was almost certain that Lydia had invited him, sometimes bad things happened and it was better to look nonchalant than heartbroken. Lydia knew he had been in love with her since pre-k, but it wasn't a guarantee that she even knew his name. So it was entirely possible that, despite being the smartest person Stiles knew, by some measure in fact, she would remember that she had given him a pity invite to one of her parties. And Lydia threw a lot of parties.

But she had remembered and invited him in, and handed him a sharpie so people could sign his cast because Lydia was a goddess even if Jackson was a douche. Of course, just because the hostess remembered him, it didn't mean that any of the popular kids at the party wanted anything to do with him.

He ended up in the basement with the other kids who had gotten invited and maybe shouldn't have. They were sat on the floor drinking Pepsi Max and laughing, as Jenny, who was in Stiles' economics class, managed to turn the drawing that Greenburg had put on his cast of an erect dick into some kind of fantasy warrior because it turned out Jenny was kick ass at drawing. They had just been laughing and joking and listening to music, whilst all the popular kids drank and screwed around upstairs, then Jenny did a headcount and said, “hey, we can play Seven Minutes in Heaven," because it was retro and it was something everyone should do at a high school party and who knew when the chance would happen again. So they had. Stiles was on painkillers for his arm, so he wasn't drinking, but that was okay, because neither were the other people in the basement.

Jenny had been warm and soft and laughed because who, apart from Lydia, kept a snowboard next to their vacuum cleaner, and she had been a little forceful too, throwing her black hair over her shoulder, sliding her fingers into Stiles' belt loops and pulling him towards her with a laugh and "kiss me."

She had tasted of cherry chapstick and ozone and petrichor and lots of other words that would have done wonders on his SATs, but were probably completely inappropriate for making out with a girl who was kind of hot, like a grown up Mabel Pines, complete with braces. Stiles had eaten before the party, in case, you know, he needed his strength to get back early, but now, all of sudden, when she nipped on his lip, he found that he was _hungry_ , that there was something inside her, in her kisses, that he needed and so he just pulled.

Then the cupboard door was flung open and Jenny fell backwards. She was smiling, but her eyes were flat and there was shouting and someone was trying to call 911 and Stiles wasn't hungry any more.

What happened next was a blur. Because Jenny had collapsed, the ambulance called the sheriff's department, which of course sent Stiles' dad, who took Stiles with him to the hospital, because if anyone knew what had happened in the cupboard with Jenny it would be the boy in the closet with her. And his dad was just quiet in the car on the drive and Stiles didn't know if that made it worse, or that he could still feel her cherry chapstick like wax on his mouth.

\---

Hospital seats were uncomfortable foam pads, covered in some sort of scratchy wool with wooden arms, and they were lined up along the wall interspersed with water coolers and vending machines. Stiles was strangely calm, terrified, no duh, but without the itchy twitchy restlessness that was normal when he was sat waiting for something. There was a low table in front of him with pamphlets about how to treat hygiene as a visitor in the hospital. Stiles flicked through one of them by habit more than because he wanted something to do. He felt calm, almost centered, but he wanted to know what the hell had happened to Jenny, if they had found something in his blood, if what happened to her would happen to him. She had collapsed, there was something clearly wrong and what if it was contagious – not that it would in anyway impede his social life, which consisted of Scott – but he would have liked to know. Maybe it was interesting, like Peruvian fighting frog disease or something.

"Stiles," his dad said, sitting down in the chair next to him, with a heavy huffing sigh, "we need to know exactly what happened at the party. We know that there was drink and drugs there, but we need to know what happened with Jenny." He looked tired, and almost grey, trying to figure out if it was a new designer drug, Stiles thought, or a virus, or if he needed to worry about his son. There was a coffee stain on his shirt, because he was wrung out, and a frown on his face, because he frowned when he didn't know what else to do. "Please," he said and handed Stiles a cup of water.

"We were drinking Pepsi Max," Stiles said, looking down into the cup. "Everyone was ignoring us, we're not popular, so we went into the basement, we were chatting and Lydia gave me a sharpie for my cast, and Jenny was drawing on it, and we started playing Seven Minutes in Heaven, because we never had, and then she collapsed, I don't know why, Dad, I really don't know why."

"Were there drugs, Stiles? Did she take something? She's on life support and we need to know why. We don't know why there is a teenage girl in there, Stiles, grinning like she's on some kind of Joker toxin, and right now I'm shitting myself that you took it too and it's only a matter of time before the next kid in the ICU is you."

"I don't know, Dad!" Stiles protested. "I really don't know." He didn't know, there had been no reason whatsoever for Jenny to collapse like she did. She hadn't eaten anything that Stiles hadn't, and everyone had been in the same bowl of M&Ms and Doritos. They had all drunk from the same large bottles of Pepsi Max because Stiles had been on painkillers and Jasper pointed out that someone would need to be designated drivers and then favors would be owed and that would be awesome. Of course that was before Jenny collapsed and the whole thing had been the most popular destination for all three types of emergency responders.

"Sheriff," Deputy Hale said coming down the corridor, past the other kids that had been in the basement and the deputies talking to them. "I can take Stiles home," he leant in and whispered something in the sheriff's ear which sounded like, "he might talk to me, I'm not his dad." The sheriff looked disappointed when he looked at Stiles, but then with an exhausted sigh he nodded.

\---

Deputy Hale opened the back door of his cruiser for Stiles to get in, so Stiles climbed in.

Deputy Hale was a local legend. Everyone knew Deputy Hale and that was often said with a swoon, because Deputy Hale was gorgeous. Sure, he was surly and often a little rude, but he had cheekbones that could cut glass, a jaw bone that could square wardrobes and an ass you could bounce a penny off of, not that Stiles had tried, and of course Stiles had a crush on him, everyone had a crush on Deputy Hale. It was one of the things in Beacon Hills High: you played lacrosse, or cheered lacrosse, or pointedly denounced lacrosse as a sport of old ladies out to get the last mango in the store, you owned a rubber wristband, you had a crush on Deputy Hale.

Also, Stiles knew him, and knew it wasn't necessarily that he was angry at the universe, although to be fair he often was, but that sometimes he was shy and it was easy to push people away. Sometimes, when Stiles brought his dad lunch, or a healthy meal substitute, because he was working late, Deputy Hale was there and he laughed at his jokes, even when, most especially when, they were awful. Deputy Hale made sure his dad was drinking decaf even if he didn't know it, and especially when he did. Deputy Hale made sure that when his dad went to the diner he ate healthy, and kept fantasy novels in his desk drawer and had laughed for a good hour when he saw Stiles reading _Twilight_.

Deputy Hale was also (pretending not to be) goofy (and failing) and lived in the big house in the woods with his sister, the novelist Laura Hale, and his uncle Creepy Mr. Hale, the high school history teacher. He insisted that Stiles call him Derek but when he spoke about "Derek" everyone at school got pissy, because who needed teen idols when they had Deputy Hale? That Stiles actually knew him was a massive insult to the entire student body, so he was Deputy Hale, and Stiles drilled it into his head that he was Deputy Hale, because the last thing he needed was someone upending a large bottle of vinegar over his head again, or throwing a slushie in his face, because he told Scott a joke that "Derek" had told him which was funny.

Deputy Hale just closed the car door behind him and pulled out his phone, "I've got him," he said into the handset, "I'll meet you there." He climbed into the front of his cruiser, turned off the police radio and started the car. And suddenly Stiles didn't have a very good feeling about this at all.

As they took the turn on fourth, away from the hospital and the complete opposite direction from his house. Stiles was sure he had a very bad feeling about this. "Deputy Hale, you're going the wrong way." He said leaning forward.

"Seatbelt, Stiles," Deputy Hale growled from the front seat. He flicked his eyes in the rear view mirror, and his eyebrows were a dark angry line, and it was pretty much all that Stiles could see of him, other than the back of his head.

"Are you kidnapping me?" Stiles tried the door, but it was a cruiser, so of course the back doors didn't open. Derek just shook his head.

"Yes, Stiles, I am taking you from your father." He sounded so sarcastic it was a wonder he could manage that amount of sass while driving a car, "from a nice safe hospital in a lo-jacked police cruiser."

"This isn't the way to your house, either, dude."

"Don't call me dude," Deputy Hale growled. "Do you want me to turn the radio on?"

"You could tell me why you're kidnapping me," Stiles offered.

"You could put your damn seat belt on." He turned onto the main road down towards the interstate. "Accidents happen."

Stiles blanched and then made a show of clipping his seat belt in place. "Was that a threat? Dude, are you threatening me? I made you brownies." Stiles couldn't stop himself from chattering. As far as fight-or-flight went, chatter was by far the most useless, most endangering self-defense option, but hey, he was Stiles Stilinski: statistically favored reactions were not in his repertoire. "You said you liked them, dude, did you not like my brownies? You could have just said! I could have made cupcakes or flapjacks." He stopped, dug his fingers into his cast, bit his lip, tried to sidle, nearly hanged himself on the seatbelt and finally stilled. "Okay, you don't need to take me into the woods, oh god, you're going to kill me. I really don't know what happened to Jenny, I promise you, please, you've got to let me out."

"Stiles," Deputy Hale repeated, "I am not taking you out into the woods to kill you." He was laughing now; his teeth were a brilliant white and his face was stubbled, and it wasn't fair, because Deputy Hale was even more stupidly gorgeous when he was smiling or laughing. It wasn’t fair that someone looked like that when they were planning to murder you and dump your body in the Preserve. Stiles was sure there were international conventions which demanded that serial killers of teens be greasy and horrible to look at, and thus immediately identifiable as “duh, this is the guy, I’d know his killer mug everywhere.” "I told your dad I was taking you, it was a stupid thing to do, don't you think, if I was going to murder you and dump your body in the Preserve." He rolled his eyes with a huffing noise. "You have such a high opinion of me, clearly."

"Deputy Hale, you're supposed to be taking me home."

"And how many times have I told you to call me Derek?" They were speeding along the highway towards Mount Shasta.

"If you're not going to murder me then where are you taking me?" This was normal, Stiles thought to himself: he was with a man who worked for his father and was currently clearly kidnapping him and going north, heading in the direction of the state lines. "Oh god, I'm underage, I'm going to die a virgin, oh god."

"Stiles, I'm not going to kill you." Deputy Hale repeated, "I've known you since you were in diapers, if I was going to kill you, I'd have done it a long time since."

"Man, I always thought it was going to be your creepy uncle that killed me, oh god, please don't kill me." He scrubbed angrily at his mouth with his fingers, his cast catching on the skin of his chin, "and I kissed Jenny and she's in the hospital and I don't know why and Lydia will never forgive me for having the Sheriff's department break up her party and I can still taste her chapstick and she's…" He scrubbed his good hand over his hair. "We weren't drinking, we were going to be designated drivers, you know, so they'd owe us favors. We were just playing spin the bottle and talking about movies and eating Doritos and M&M's. We weren't doing anything."

Deputy Hale just shook his head like he couldn't believe what he was hearing.

"I'm telling you everything I know, really, can you take me home, I've had the absolute worst day and I just want to go home and to bed so it's over." 

Deputy Hale just continued driving. That made sense, Stiles thought, there wasn't an exit. They’d both be really upset if he took a right there, where there was a knee-high shoulder of concrete and then trees, spiky, black trees, but he could just acknowledge it. Stiles opened his mouth again. "It's like way past my bedtime and Dad took my phone and..."

"Stiles," Deputy Hale said, flicking his eyes at him in the rear view, "shut up."

"No." Stiles pouted. "I need to take pain killers for my arm and my Adderall, and I need to pee."

Deputy Hale reacted to that. "Does your arm still hurt?" he asked. Stiles thought about it, because now that he took the time to consider it, his arm didn't hurt. This was odd, because it had ached like a bitch before he'd gotten to the hospital and now it didn't hurt, and he didn't know why. He was due a dose of pain killers so his arm should really hurt, he hadn't gotten any more even when they'd taken his blood and spit at the hospital trying to work out what it was that had happened to Jenny.

"It's broken, dude, of course it hurts," Stiles snapped anyway. "Do you have some Tylenol or something?"

"Nope." Deputy Hale dragged out the p with a pop of his lips which Stiles had always felt was a bit lewd. It wasn't fair that anyone looked like Derek Hale. God knew Stiles didn't: he was lanky and moley, with brown eyes and although his mouth was large he had these extremely odd, flappy lips, so he kind of looked like a fish if he didn't keep it shut. 

Stiles almost missed it when Deputy Hale flicked the indicator on to suggest they were leaving the interstate at the upcoming turn off. "Might have some antacids, because you know Brian can't stay away from Uncle Peter's chili, although it gives him the most awful heartburn. It's like spontaneous human combustion, so I'm prepared for that." He popped open the glove box and rooted around with his free hand. "Some activated charcoal," he said pulling out the jar and holding it up to the grating. "Best I can do, sorry." 

Stiles took the bottle and it was what it said, just a green plastic bottle of activated charcoal capsules because they were manna from heaven, according to his dad, if you were on a stake out with Brian, and Peter Hale's chili was epic. It was super awesome and he made it by the vat and he always sent it off for Stiles and his dad, because Peter Hale had been friends with his Mom and she had loved that chili and it was another of those things that no one mentioned at school. Although Scott believed Stiles' dad made the awesome chili and activated charcoal was so necessary, because Scott was just toxic without it. Stiles pocketed the jar, just in case it came in handy later, maybe as a rather crappy bludgeon.

They were pulling up to a house, one of the old colonial ones from before the civil war. He hadn't thought there were a lot of them in North California, but clearly he was wrong. It wasn't southern slave owner chic, though – it looked a bit more eastern European; a grey brick building with small windows and red tile roof. It was completely surrounded by trees and there were lights in the windows. It looked like someone was throwing a party. In a flare of inexplicable self-importance, Stiles got the impression he was the guest of honor and he didn't like it. 

"We're here," Deputy Hale said and got out of the car. 

"Please don't kill me. I don't want to be part of some sort of kinky murder sex game." 

Deputy Hale just shook his head as if in despair and opened the car door for him. "Just don't piss on the carpet," he said, as Stiles climbed out of the car, then grabbed him by the scruff of the neck like he was a kitten. "Best behavior, Stiles, don't speak until spoken to, and, for god's sake, don't mouth off."

There were two goons – they were clearly goons, they looked like they had been hired from a catalogue and then put in matching black goon suits – on either side of the door. 

"You're expecting me," Deputy Hale said. 

The goon on the left, whose hair was scraped back in a wrestler ponytail and flattened down with gel or oil or just plain hair grease, tilted his neckless head and opened the door. 

There was a sort of baronial air to the house: it was beautifully maintained and expensive, if the tiffany light shades which warmed the open hallway were anything to judge by. The whole thing smacked, to Stiles at least, of drug dealers or gambling debts.

Oh god, he thought, I am going to be sold to settle Deputy Hale’s gambling debts.

"Beta Hale," a woman said coming forward. She was wearing a service uniform that was basically shapeless and had in her hand a clipboard. "He's waiting on you." And Deputy Hale actually thanked her by name and used that grin that he only really used when Stiles had told him a truly terrible joke, or he wanted female criminals to talk. And they always did. Stiles was half convinced that that smile caused fluffy bunnies and nuns to spontaneously combust with the power of its sexiness. This woman was completely nonplussed, which was, to Stiles' knowledge, a first, a “what is this strange new parallel world” kind of first.

Speaking of odd things which hadn’t happened before: they were led to a set of beautifully and heavily carved wooden doors. The carving was of a weeping willow tree caught in a light breeze, lots of flowing lines and tiny leaves, more effort than should have been put in something that was a mobile bit of wall, in Stiles’ opinion. The woman, walking in front of them, because of course Deputy Hale still had him in a kitten hold, ushered them into what was clearly a throne room. It even had banners and spears and stuff. The throne itself was empty, but to the left of it was an antique desk with a top of the range iBook on it, and picking away at it with two fingers and a rather consternated expression was a man in a dressing gown and a pair of bright blue Stitch slippers, and if Stiles was ever pressed to describe the embodiment of an anti-climax, this would have been it. The man stood up, pulled on the ties of his dressing gown to make sure he didn't flash anyone with his satin kimono, a rich red number with silver mountains and fluffy white clouds, which was probably the most inappropriate garb to be worn by a mysterious man in the middle of nowhere in charge of who-knew-what. 

"I hope you appreciate this, boy," the man said, scratching at his bald black head, because of course the man in the inappropriate kimono and fuzzy _Lilo and Stitch_ slippers was practically the mirror image of Michael Clarke Duncan and had biceps larger than Stiles' head. He also had a voice like mountains turning over in their sleep and fists like a cave troll. "I was watching _Project Runway_ and I do not like to be disturbed when the models are walking."

"Oh fuck," Stiles muttered. "I died in the closet, I'm in Hell." Deputy Hale rolled his eyes and dropped Stiles into a chair.

"And where is your Alpha, Beta Hale?" The man mountain in the red satin kimono said.

"She is on her way, Lord Willow," Deputy Hale said with a deferent bow of the head.

"And yet," a man said, pushing open the door, "you didn't think to invite us." The newcomer was wearing a very slick grey suit, but was an old man, bald with a ring of silver hair like Captain Picard, but unlike Picard his face was hard and he clearly had muscles under the suit. There was something about him that exuded menace. To his left was a younger man, older than Deputy Hale, in a pin striped suit with a white tee, with a sharp nose and dark aviator sunglasses, the sort of detail you couldn't help but notice, with a white cane in his hand, and to his right was a woman who looked like she had been poured into a black lace dress that was at least one size too small. "And it is clear from the manifestation that this one belongs to us."

The man in the kimono chuckled. It was a dark rocks tumbling sort of sound, which sort of rolled through Stiles like an avalanche of good feelings about the whole thing, rolling down the mountain and into a bottomless pit. "You come here without my permission and make demands of me in my own home," he added in a voice like a boom of thunder rolling through the air, "when the models are walking."

The woman laughed and Stiles was not surprised that it was a Disney villainess cackle. "You know better than to do this without at least one representative of the Dark present."

"It was an unsanctioned feeding off a human in Light territory, that makes this none of your business, Bridhe, so take your goons and leave," Deputy Hale said firmly. He had adopted a stance that suggested he was preparing for a fight.

"There are no succubi in the States aligned with the Light – that means he is ours," the grey haired man said. "He is clearly Clan Chuin, just look at him."

There was a low clapping from the rear of the room and Stiles flicked his eyes to the door to see Laura Hale walk in. If Deputy Hale was earth-shatteringly gorgeous, he almost paled in comparison to his older sister, who was wearing pink sweat pants, an outsized and torn Beacon Hills Sheriff's Department Fun Run tee shirt and a red hoodie. She was also wearing a battered pair of flip flops, the top off the ensemble of a True Badass. "You surprise me, Argent, that you can make such assumptions and still be so hideously wrong. Tell them your name, kid," she said with a smile. 

"Stiles," he stammered, "Stilinski."

Laura grinned and it was a huge thing, like the sun revealing itself after a horrible rainy morning to promise a great afternoon. "You see, Argent," she managed to say the name like it was painful in her mouth, "he would be Clan Chuin but for one small detail: his mother was Nadezhda Lukyanenko of Clan Chuin, who was cast out by the Dark and married a human. He was born and raised in Light territory that makes him Light. He was born and raised in my territory, by a high ranking official that I trust to police MY territory; that makes the boy mine."

"He's incubi," the grey haired man, Argent, said, sneering forward in a threat. "He's Dark."

"Alpha Hale is right," the other man in a suit said calmly, "but there are other aspects to consider."

"The boy is undeclared, Deucalion." The black man in the kimono pointed out. "He is not old enough to declare."

"That we have to discuss," Alpha Hale, Laura, pointed out. "But until then he is mine. I offer him pack rights until he is old enough to declare." She grinned at Stiles. "Take him home, Der, back to ours. I'll deal with his dad in the morning." Deputy Hale nodded and lifted Stiles up by the scruff again. "Make sure he knows what he is, right now he looks like he fell down the rabbit hole." Her smile suddenly had too many teeth in it. "But I invoke pack rights, Deucalion, Argent." She said firmly. "Do you wish to contest them, Argent? After what yours did?" She was deliberately saying the name, using it like a curse, a weapon and shield both. Derek didn't let Stiles remain long enough to hear what was said, which was a shame, considering.

"Stiles," Deputy Hale, or Beta Hale, or whatever, said calmly when they were outside, opening the passenger side door to the police cruiser, "welcome to the Pack."

\---

Deputy Hale was tapping his fingers on the steering wheel as he drove, back along the interstate towards Beacon Hills. "You didn't understand any of that, did you?" he said finally.

Stiles was picking at his cuticles. "Still think you're going to murder me and dump my body in the preserve," he said blankly.

"Well, shit," Deputy Hale muttered. "You hungry?"

"I could eat." Stiles hissed and then popped his finger into his mouth, having tugged the cuticle a bit too hard and actually hurt himself. 

Deputy Hale nodded. "There's a diner not far from here, we can stop there."

"Are you going to kill me?" Stiles asked, and through the rear view mirror he saw that for a second there he looked very young and afraid, not like the cocky kid he had been earlier in the day.

"Nope," Hale popped the sound again, obviously deliberately. "I am going to take you for burgers at a hole in the wall diner and then take you back to mine, after I've phoned your dad to say you swear up and down that all you ate or drank was as legal as Pepsi could make it, that you think Jenny banged her head, and that she'll be fine. The hospital will call in a specialist and she'll be back at school by the end of the week." That last bit had clearly been added for Stiles' benefit. 

They pulled off into the car park of the diner a minute later.

"What happened to her?" Stiles asked, because most of the diner was dark and really, if Deputy Hale was aiming for reassuring an abandoned asylum would have been better than this dump. "I mean why did she collapse? Is that going to happen to me? Is this some new designer drug? Oh, god, are you going to kill me?"

"Stiles," Hale said finally, slapping his palm on the steering wheel. "How many times do I have to say it? I am not going to kill you, no matter how tempting that might be right now. If I didn't kill you for the thing with the Kool-Aid, and I know that was you, I'm not going to kill you now."

It had been Stiles: powdered blue Kool-Aid in the shower heads at the station had been priceless. He'd also been ten at the time, and his father couldn't decide if he was horrified, angry, or found the whole thing hilarious. Deputy Hale, who had been skunk-struck and had to use the showers, had been blue for a week. He had been like a very angry Smurf with eyebrows: no one could take him seriously. He'd had to take the time off as sick leave. 

"Oh, man, your face.” Stiles grinned broadly. The Angry Smurf had been a sight to see, especially since it failed to stick to incriminating evidence. “The photos went all screwy, it was heart-breaking." 

Hale's eyes flashed blue, it was the strangest thing that Stiles had seen, they were legitimately glowing blue, but just for a second, quick enough that Stiles thought that he might have imagined it. "I was bright blue," Hale growled. "And it wouldn't come off. Laura still laughs about it. Peter hosed me down in the yard. He worried that I'd stain the hall rug."

"Dude, it was amazing," Stiles said, unbuckling his seat belt and climbing out of the car. 

"It lasted a week," Hale slammed the car door behind him. "I stunk of skunk and blueberry Kool-Aid. Nothing Peter tried would remove it, and believe me he tried _everything_. Laura started calling me Violet Beauregard and still hums that song at me." He did sound like he was still angry, but Stiles imagined he would be, too, if he had to listen to some five years of Willy Wonka jokes, because Scott had dared Stiles to do it, thinking he'd chicken out. Stiles hadn't; he never turned down a dare, and the resulting punishment had been so worth it.

Hale practically pushed him into the diner and from there into a booth. "Man," Stiles said sliding unto the hard pleather seats, "if you're going to kill me I am totally having curly fries. At least I'll die happy."

Hale rolled his eyes again. "Oh yes, I'm clearly going to kill you, if I'm buying you dinner."

"Is this a date?" Stiles asked then, "have you kidnapped me, brought me to the Kingpin, and who thought that he was that mad on Project Runway, and then taken me here as some sort of bizarre Hale mating ritual?"

Hale raised an eyebrow as if questioning Stiles' ability to live. "Yes, this is a date, clearly." He said as the waitress came over. They ordered quickly, without even looking at the menu but Deputy Hale cut off Stiles' request for coffee and made sure he had a milk shake instead, with the words "the last thing you need is more caffeine."

"Are you going to tell me what's going on?" Stiles said as they waited for their meal.

"Nope," Hale answered with a grin, the one that belonged in a granny bed, between a granny quilt and a granny bed-cap, the one the girls at school called his panty-melting grin. 

They ate in silence. Well, Hale ate in silence and ignored Stiles' chatter completely, focusing on his rare burger, extra onions, and passing his curly fries to Stiles, who was never one to pass up the opportunity for spiced fried potatoes, especially of the curly variety. Stiles drank his milkshake with thick slurps curling his tongue around the straw which Hale watched avidly, and then went to the men's room with the I've clearly been sat too long numb legs walk. Stiles just snickered at him until he was out of sight.


	2. The Lady and the Wolf

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Light Elders are named for trees ie The Willow, The Ash, The Blackthorn  
> The Dark Elders are named for warriors ie The Morrigan, The Bridhe
> 
> Bridhe is pronounced Breezh
> 
> We recieved some glorious art from [AlphaFeels](http://archiveofourown.org/users/AlphaFeels/pseuds/AlphaFeels) which you can see [here](http://archiveofourown.org/works/758582) so make sure you dash over to her site and praise her lots!

If Laura had known that Argent was going to be there she wouldn’t have worn her favorite flip-flops because there was always the chance that she would get to throw one at his head, cool, collected, mature Alpha she was, and touching a flip-flop that touched Argent was a no-no (because come on, like she would miss). A wooden clog would be best, and it could later be venerated as the clog that cracked Gerard Argent clear in his smug face.  
   
“The precedent is very thin here, I trust you are all aware,” Lord Willow said.  
   
Laura rolled her eyes, discreetly, as one did when one wanted to keep their eyes, and nodded.  
   
“By birth the boy belongs to the Dark,” The Bridhe continued, “and same is true of any of his kind. I don’t want to see you storming here every time a toddler striga is discovered, Alpha Hale, just because you knew their mother.”

It wasn't quite that simple, though. The boy had the right to choose, any child should, striga or not. A child raised in the Dark was more likely to choose the Dark, hence Laura didn’t much care for striga toddlers, whose families would raise them Dark, and encourage them to munch on the other toddlers in their playgroup. Now, if they found a parentless striga toddler, it would be another matter, but even so, Stiles was a special case. He should have, by every method they knew to record it, been human, regardless of how many moonlit orgies Nadezhda attended, or instigated. The fact that his father was human nullified any magic he could possibly inherit; a succubus or an incubus could only bear or sire a human, if the other parent was a human. The Stilinskis had been in Beacon Hills for so long that some of the fäe remembered the Sheriff’s grandparents, all of whom were human to the bone, and when one had nothing but humans in their parentage up to the third generation, any fäe blood was too diluted to manifest, and considering that Stiles was the image of his father they didn't even need to do DNA tests to prove his paternity. It was guaranteed a human and a fae produced a human child.

Some of the theory would have to be revisited now that Stiles was in the picture, but there it was, laid bare, every reason Laura had to fight - well that and spiting Argent.  
   
“That's hardly the case here, sir.” Laura shook the cuff of the hoodie, one of Derek’s damn it, off her wrist, and stretched her fingers because otherwise she would have made a fist. “The boy should have been human and even if he wasn’t, Nadezhda made an effort to keep him neutral. She chose death to keep him from the Dark even when she thought him human. She was a friend to the pack, I owe it to her to try and keep it that way, to raise him to be able to make an intelligent decision when he does declare.” She glared at Argent and the Bridhe for good measure. “Regardless of his birthright, I will honor his mother’s sacrifice and give him the choice.”  
   
“You will be held responsible for him, Alpha Hale.” The Bridhe sounded like she wanted her to fail, which was possible.  
   
“I’d like to see you talking his way out of unauthorised feeding the next time,” Argent sneered. “He fed from a child once, you think you can keep him in line? How, I wonder?” The sarcasm in his voice was thick as butter. “Whoring him out to your pack may not work out as well as you think, for as long as you think, especially as your folks enjoy them young.”  
   
Laura would have liked an award for how she was not tearing Argent’s face off. Just because. Nothing fancy, maybe a solid golden cup with nut-sized diamonds around the rim, with the words “congratulations, Laura, on your amazing self-control” laid out in small rubies along the base. No one noticed the tremendous effort she put into not tearing people’s faces off. No, that wasn’t fair. Peter and Derek would have noticed, but really, enjoying Derek’s appreciation was on par with enjoying a particularly eager corgi’s delight in a bowl of food. Peter mostly enjoyed looking at her mournfully and muttering about satin, lace and fresh kills, as well as the noble duty to the mighty moon and the great wolf spirit. Sometimes Laura thought Peter owed allegiance to the Light because the Dark took one lick of him and spat him back out.  
   
“First of all, fifteen is hardly a child, so help me, if anyone so much as thinks about the word pedophilia, I will bludgeon them to bloody inconvenience with a Greek dictionary,” Laura said, counting backwards from one hundred and seven in Peter’s measured voice. “Secondly, he ceased being a child, as defined by fäe law, when he woke to his powers, which he did when he unknowingly fed upon that girl. He is an incubus. He needs to feed, and he will be schooled in how to do it safely. Until he is able to, he will have to be provided with an alternative. I will take full responsibility, Lord Willow, Lady Bridhe.”  
   
“Your courage is to be commended, even if your choice of attire isn’t.”

She looked him up and down noticing, for the first time, his bright red satin bathrobe and Stitch slippers. Peter would have a good day mocking those, and then picking his bloody bits from the floor, but that would be fine: Peter would heal and consider it worth it.  
   
“I wasn’t expecting to be summoned to an audience, sir,” she said, "and it was time sensitive, and like you I was watching Project Runway. I thought it better to get into the car than take the time to visit Lord and Taylor."  
   
“Nonetheless, as a leader of a pack you are expected to set certain standards." His voice was a rumble of the thunder-bearing kind. "I don’t think sweatpants are appropriate. Nor would your uncle, I believe.” And that was the truth, Peter thought of her like his own personal Barbie doll.  
   
Oh god, Laura thought a heartbeat later, Peter got his hands on the voodoo dolls and had bewitched Lord Willow who now was acting like an evil Tim Gunn. “It will never happen again.”  
   
“Good. Now.” Lord Willow looked at the clock on the mantle. “If we’re done, I can still catch the second episode. Is there anything else?” he asked, implying in no uncertain terms there had better not be, and that Laura was not yet off the hook when it came to her choice of sweatpants. It was always worse when they interrupted him during _Project Runway_. He seemed to want _avant garde_ fashion forward and not sweatpants and flip flops. It could be because the Dark had burst into his home to argue with him, that never went well.  
   
“No, sir,” she said. Argent had the good sense to nod, suddenly serious, and Laura forced herself to ignore him, even if she wanted nothing more than to beat the oily smirk from his face with her flip flop. It would take a very long time, but holy hell, wouldn’t it be grand?  
   
“Very good. I conclude all matters settled. I do not wish to be further disturbed with trivia. Good night to you all, see yourselves out.”  
   
“Goodnight, Lord Willow, Lady Bridhe.”  
   
Laura made a great show of delivering the proper courtly curtsy, because for one thing The Willow had a thing for models who could move well and secondly, because fuck Argent, that’s why. Still, she was half expecting open hostility, at the very least a verbal attack, if not something more overt. She got none. The Bridhe and Argent bowed and departed, leaving behind the foul stench of death and another sour memory of sharing a breathing space to add to the incineration pile. Sometimes all she could smell was smoke and burned pork.  
   
Deucalion stayed by main door, waiting for her, which was a surprise. He had moved to stand beside her, and now there they were, less than a yard between them, standing together like a pair of smokers escaping the office.  
   
“You don’t plan on arguing, I hope?” Laura asked, shoving her hands into the pockets of the hoodie. He always made her feel under-dressed, partly because of his very fine wool and silk suits and partly because of the way he wore them; no wonder he was Lord Willow’s favorite minion of the Dark, when the silk and wool molded to his shoulders and back like it was grown around him. He also looked at her like she was dressed in a fashion of the Bridhe, who Peter called – behind her back because one did not simply insult the leader of the Dark to her face – Princess Aura of Mongo. There was no way to ignore the way she dressed, all lace barely constraining her rather voluptuous body, long black hair and shoes that would have made professional models wince at their height. The Bridhe was a Dark idol in lace, and yet Deucalion treated Laura like she was a goddess, and not a wolf in flipflop sweatpants and her brother's hoodie.  
   
He laughed at her words. “Hardly. I knew Nadezhda well. She wanted her son to be human, this is the best alternative under the circumstances.”  
   
“But you do want something.” Deucalion always wanted something.  
   
Deucalion wandered over to the decanter on the table and poured two glasses of whiskey. “Indeed. I want time alone with your new protégé.” He offered a glass to Laura: palm up, no trickery, just honest desire to talk.  
   
Laura wouldn’t be Laura, however, if she let that the words go without a comment. “You know he’s not a whore, regardless, right? He’s gonna choose who he feeds off, I’m not going to just hand him over to whomever, and even so he was raised as human, he won't have the usual whatever attitude to sex.”  
   
“You wound me, darling. As if I am simply whomever!” His smile was knife sharp showing just enough teeth to not be quite threatening. It was a practiced smile, one of a wolf in a prince’s suit.  
   
“No offence to anyone, Deucalion, but for all he knows you might as well be.” She balled her fists in the pocket of her hoodie.  
   
“I am a handsome whomever, though." He said, his eyes twinkling with mischief, "I’m sure any incubus, any fäe, would be happy to have a taste of me.”  
   
Not that Laura went out of her way to compliment anyone, but Deucalion did have that going for him, no question. She didn’t know incubi tastes very well, but she’d wager he was correct - and they weren't known to be picky. Also, Stiles was a teenage boy and historically they weren't that picky if it was offered to them on a plate. “I thought we should get him started with something more neutral. No reason to spring prairie oysters on a kid used to porridge, and remember, he grew up human so far, so I don’t see him being all that eager to adjust to a common incubi lifestyle.”  
   
“See, normally I would be offended at being compared to something without a vertebra, but as it happens I tried them last month and they make for a surprisingly fine dish, and I must take the compliment that you think I have balls as big as a bull.” He saluted her with his glass. “And here we hit the matter I wished to address.” True indeed; Deucalion instantly became serious. “I’m not interested in bedding the boy, Laura, not in the slightest. I want to have time to explain to the boy what the Dark is, what the balance is, and why George Lucas was wrong.”  
   
Laura grinned as if the person on the receiving end was not a Dark one. “Stiles has got a working brain, you know. George wasn’t exactly subtle and it’s not likely to go up from there.”  
   
“Hardly! If nothing else, Kyp Durron gives a fair counterpoint.”  
   
She blinked. He wasn't just talking _Star Wars_ with her, but the extended universe? Deucalion had never struck her as knowing about those things. He seemed more the type to lounge on expensive couch, often half-naked, and sip expensive wine out of bohemian crystal tumblers, while admiring his kidnapped ballerinas performing _Wolf Lake_. “Wait, wasn’t that the fellow who blew up a planet?” She'd had to wrack her brains to think of it, and it was only because she had once cruised a wiki while looking up names for a fanfic that she remembered.  
   
“A sun, yes. The planet on which the Imperial Academy was located was collateral damage.” He tilted his head as he looked at her.  
   
“Huh,” Laura said. “Well, if that’s your promotional material, go with it. Although I don’t think even J.J. Abrams could save you.”  
   
“If he chooses Admiral Thrawn as his main antagonist, he might. Regardless, I can’t promise I will run all my promotional leaflets by you, my dear, but I can promise I won’t lie about either my nature or my purpose. Nadezhda wanted for her boy a choice, not necessarily a rejection of the Dark. I can respect that.”  
   
Laura had a very particular opinion on the subject, but there was no way she could refuse Deucalion. The balance was important; it was all that stopped the fäe from starting the war over, and if they did they would destroy the world totally, enough had been lost even in a thousand years of peace. “I won’t stand in your way, but you have to inform me when you take him, and then have it somewhere public and neutral.”  
   
“As if I would dare to kidnap the Sheriff’s son, really.” He looked over the rims of his aviators with blind eyes rolling, as if he was laughing at her.

Laura had never mentioned whose son Stiles was on the human side, which meant that Deucalion had taken the time to learn, or more disturbingly, had known all along. “He is still underage by California law and we can’t exactly use the obvious defense if caught,” she said.  
   
“I don’t particularly want the Sheriff on my trail, you are right he is a good man and he loved Nadezhda well enough to appease _even_ me.” He paused, nostrils flaring again and licked his lips. “Did he ever find out what happened to Kate Argent by the way?” Laura didn’t need to look to know they were alone, but she did anyway. Deucalion was a slippery bastard; the chances of talking to him alone in a magically proofed space were going to be limited, she’d better make the most of it. She shook her head and Deucalion shrugged. “Good. It was never for human law to find. What did you do with her, though? I always wondered.”  
   
“Buried in the woods,” Laura said curtly. “There’s a circle of rowans by the old pond, safe from all magic. The three of us go out there now and again to piss on it. It’s more than she deserved, and I thought returning her to the family would be in poor taste, they might honour her sacrifice.”  
   
“It depends on whether you removed the bow first.” Deucalion took the time to deliver his best smile, not, as the subject of the conversation would suggest, something sinister and vindictive, but a charming grin of a born seducer. It wasn’t that different from the smile he offered a few years back, when he arrived at the smoking debris of the Hale house, proffering a box with a red bow and equally red blood wafting among the cracks and staining the seams “Does Argent know where?”  
   
“I… didn’t know if he knew what happened to her. So no.”  
   
“Do you want me to tell him? He does know. He’s not happy about it, but he does know.”  
   
That was unexpectedly insulting. “She burned children! Humans and fäe alike just so she could feed! Don’t try and bullshit me, I still can’t believe he didn’t send her! I doubt she'd threaten the truce like that without the head of her family knowing.”  
   
Deucalion held up a hand. “Calm down, my dear. If he sent her, he hid it well. I did my best to find a connection, believe me. If he had sent her, there would have been two heads in the box, and you would have free hand in exacting your dues from the Dark.”  
   
Laura closed her eyes. “Thank you. It’s—it has meant a lot to Derek to know our family was avenged.” It had meant even more to Peter, given that Laura had a massive fight with him, blood and fur on broken furniture included, about not going after the responsible ones. Let it never be said an alpha cannot be challenged, she thought grimly, palming the extensive scar on her hip. She had let it stay as a reminder, inked on her back in lycanthrope, as a fierce battle that she had survived. She later learned that Deucalion had dealt with it anyway.  
   
“I would do much to see you avenged, Laura.” Deucalion bowed his head in a strange gesture of deference, and waved his glass about, letting the expensive whiskey inside slosh. “But in this specific case, I’m no hero. There was no question about Kate Argent’s guilt, she admitted she acted unprovoked. Even if she hadn’t, her fingerprints were all over the place and she threatened the truce. Her own father lodged no protest when the sentence was relayed to him.”  
   
That did remove a substantial amount of worry from Laura’s shoulders. Not all, because Argents weren’t known for their restraint and sanity and there was Bloodfeud between them from before the truce, but it was plenty. Sure, Laura had every right to come down on their heads raining fire and vengeance, not even Lord Willow would take that away from her, but this was somehow better, if more risky. Wiping the Argents out would be satisfying, but quick; watching Gerard stew and fume as she rebuilt her pack back was better. Plus, he knew that if they came after the pack again it would be unprovoked, and Laura would not be left alone to bury the corpses. The Dark, Deucalion especially, watched them closely. “Thank you,” she said again.  
   
“How are you getting on with Peter?” Deucalion asked, nodding towards her hip, as though he was perfectly aware of what lay beneath the soft fabric.  
   
“He’s stopped challenging me.” She didn't say for now.  
   
It surprised Deucalion because he blinked. “Did he really now?”  
   
“Peter doesn’t want to be the alpha,” she said. “It wouldn’t amuse him at all, too many distractions from what he does enjoy.”  
   
“What would that be?”  
   
“Frankly, I prefer not to know. He is happy enough vacuuming this week, but what would follow is anyone’s guess. There was talk of managing the high school musical but I think he heard somewhere that he would get to eat the school idol as a prize, I think he watches Glee as a cooking show.”  
   
“Huh,” Deucalion said. Peter had been a fierce warrior, a cunning murderer. He had refused a place among the Light Elders, he had refused the role of the Blackthorn, the Elder's assassin. He was not a simple man given to being houseproud, he was a warrior who would topple human kingdoms just because it had amused him, and made no secret of it. His alliance to his family was a matter of convenience and sentiment, and Peter submitted to sentiment only as long as it served his interests. “I would like to court you.”  
   
Laura calmly answered the question that should have followed, which was “Are you sure you can trust Peter?” then paused and recalled that in the first place Deucalion asked no question, and in the second, he mentioned courting.  
   
“Excuse me?”  
   
“I would like to court you, Alpha Hale.”  
   
“Why?” I’m a werewolf, she thought. I’m a Light one. I’m wearing sweatpants while you’re in a pricy suit. I haven't shaved since August and it's now late September. You can stomach Argent. This would never work! He was a wolf, like her, all the finery in the world couldn’t hide it and he didn’t try, but the two clans were completely different. She was Light and he was Dark; a marriage between them for anyone other than the rank of Deucalion was a death sentence in both camps.  
   
“You are the Alpha,” he said like all of the other things didn’t matter. “I need a strong queen to rule with me, a Pyrrha to my Deucalion, queen of all the Wolves. There is no one stronger than you, nor have I met anyone more lovely.” There was a small flare of his nostrils at that comment, unable to see her, he sniffed her instead.  
   
“The Bridhe would claw what remains of your eyes out for that.” It was no secret that Deucalion was a favorite of the ruler of the Dark, and although she wasn't a succubus she enjoyed the pleasures of the flesh and wolves were very pleasing indeed.  
   
“It is only one of the many reasons I chose you, that you would even care what happened to me.”  
   
Laura stared at her feet, wriggling her toes in her flip flops, the glass in her hand crystal warmed by her skin, and suddenly very heavy. “No,” she said. “I have my pack to worry about and Peter would kill me if I took up with a Dark one.”  
   
“And Derek wouldn’t, perhaps Cora?”  
   
“Derek would be very disappointed," she said it in a light tone. "I live in fear of disappointing Derek, you wouldn’t believe the guilt-trip he can send you on with one look.” Laura swallowed the spit that had gathered in her mouth like an ocean, washing it down with the scotch before she shook her head. "Cora is happier as part of a pack with many children, she'll come back when she's ready, and probably be disappointed then."  
   
“That is a concern,” Deucalion said, considering. “A serious concern. I have no littermates left to me, so I do not know what it is like to disappoint them. I killed them years ago.”  
   
“And there’s another thing. Good bye.” Laura shrugged. “If you will excuse me, I do have a newly minted incubus to train, my territory is a small town, there are only so many teenagers that they can lose before they get suspicious. The Sheriff is a good man, the very image of his son, and I do not care to inconvenience him when I could prevent it. It makes for far too much work I could easily avoid.”

“I’ll be seeing you,” he said, and his blind gaze followed her out of the room, lingering, of that Laura had no doubt whatsoever, on her ass.

*****

First thing Laura did after getting out of The Willow’s house was shed all clothes and shift. Popular culture would have her believe shedding all clothes on the forest floor was slutty, at best, but to those people she said fuck you and your werewolf discrimination, assholes. How else was she going to get her stuff to keep, if not by bundling it so that it could be carried in the mouth while she still had opposable thumbs? She liked those sweatpants, after all, and Derek would pout at her if she let the hoodie go missing. Then, once that was ready, she shifted, stretched and yawned, to get the maw going properly. She’d had no dinner tonight and it was nearly the time of the month; she needed something raw and wriggling. Stiles was over for dinner, which meant there would be cooking and frying, and, knowing Peter, a nice, sensible vegetarian option.

There was a cute, harmless rabbit in the undergrowth, nose twitching and little white tail flickering amongst the gorse. Laura grinned and gave chase, letting the bundle drop on the final stretch, far enough from The Willow’s house to not so much hide the fact she was hunting out of her territory, as let it fly under the radar. Not that anyone would kick a fuss over a rabbit, but it was better to be safe than sorry.

Laura had liked rabbits ever since he was a little girl. Particularly the heart. Mmm, she thought, making quick work of the skin, muscle and sinew. She’d be picking fur out of her teeth for days, but biology had its little quirks, particularly the parts which fought the up-chuck reflex when confronted with fäe politics. Bleeding asshattery was what it was, she thought, tearing into what she’d love to be Argent’s belly, but was sadly only a harmless rabbit.

With supper in her stomach she wandered to the nearby stream to wash her muzzle and then home, where Derek’s car was already cooling in its parking spot. Laura sneezed. Time to rock and roll, she thought, leaping over the railings onto the porch and then shifting mid-step.

She walked into the house stretching the kinks out her shoulders and walked into a curiously silent scene, the center point of which was Stiles’ rapidly reddening face.

“Laura,” Peter said kindly, letting his hands fall to his sides. Uh-oh, Laura thought, I know that pose. That pose means story-time. “How nice of you to join us. Sweet potato fries?”

Stiles gibbered something impolite under his breath and stared at his plate. He was bright red and had hunched his shoulders in on himself in an attempt to make himself smaller.

“Clothes,” Derek supplied _sotto voce_.

“Shit fuck crap,” Laura cursed. Thank god she transferred the clothes to her hand, at least. Walking into a room naked was awkward; walking into a room naked with a bundle of a hoodie in your teeth was worse. “Sorry Stiles. I’ll be right back.”

She probably should take a shower right now. A shower would do her good. She’d no longer worry about having the hints of Deucalion about her presence – less risk of Peter gnawing on her ankles – but she had Stiles to talk to and leaving young, impressionable minds with Peter for an extended period of time… Yeah, shower would have to wait. She pulled her old clothes back on, tied her hair on the nape of her neck, and got back to her generous supper of sweet potatoes, rocket and onion. “Peter, this vegetarian phase of yours has to end.” And she knew he was sneaking beef on the side, and bacon, she just couldn't prove it.

“I thought you already ate.”

“I ate a rabbit, uncle, I don't want to eat what rabbits do, I'm pretty sure he's not hungry any more.”

“Vitamins and minerals, one cannot live on rabbit alone.” He looked smug, as smug as an almost feral werewolf could in a wrap around apron.

“You will bark those words back when I’m PMSing,” Laura muttered and dug in nonetheless. Stiles was watching her, or rather he was trying not to watch her and how she was not wearing a bra. He was still bright red which suggested she was the first naked woman he had ever seen in the flesh, which she supposed made sense.

“I assume Peter answered some of your questions?” she asked, just to give him something else to think about.

“Yeah,” Stiles said. “He said Derek is definitely not going to kill me, although I have my doubts about that. I mean, have you seen this dude? He’d snap me like a twig without looking!”

Laura looked at Derek and his earnest gaze of a lost puppy, looked at Peter, whose eyebrows were way up high in judging mode, and snickered. “Scout’s honor,” she said. “Derek’s not going to kill you.”

“Well, no questions then. I have none. Whatsoever. Everything’s fine and cool, can I call my dad? I promise - no drugs were involved!”

“Sweet Jesus,” Laura said.

“They just got here.” Peter chewed his rocket and onion salad like he was a goddamned rabbit himself. “Went to a diner, I’m given to understand. Everyone is eating out these days, no regard for a man’s feelings, or his cooking.”

"Or vegetarianism." Derek muttered.

“My timing is spectacular,” Laura said, rolling her eyes. “Stiles, don’t call your father. I will call him and I will speak with him first, I'm sure Derek's already texted him to say you're staying here tonight, just in case. Tomorrow, I'll tell him everything.” She took a deep breath. “Please tell me one of those clowns told you something.”

“Oh, yeah, Derek was very helpful, except not, and Peter – I don’t even know what that was about. I’m a touch old for fairy-tales.” He fidgeted in his seat. “I might need my Adderall now, and some tylenol for my wrist.”

“I’m not getting naked again.” Laura poked the potato on her plate, which failed to wriggle or cry for help. “You can get it in words now, physical proof later.”

“I really feel mythology is the appropriate beginning,” Peter said. “And he’s already seen you naked, so I doubt we can expect coherency for the next half-hour.”

“Take it, then,” Laura said with a sigh.

Indulging Peter’s inner drama queen was a risky business, but credit where credit was due: he was a great storyteller. “It begins in ancient Babylon, with a virgin,” he said in a mystical kind of voice, drawing on the faintest glamour, the peak of what was available to werewolves. “She was beautiful and kind, until one day someone cursed her for reasons of their own. From then on, where she went disaster followed. If she smiled at children they would sicken, if she stroked a puppy it would die. Terrible fortune would befall everyone else, man, woman or village, until they were forced to drive her out.

“The curse grew upon itself until it consumed the girl and everyone around her. As it happened, however, not all were ignorant of the curse and some could see it in action, so to speak, as it affected the world around itself, even as the girl remained unaware. Now, seeing it would have been plenty, but it turned out some could reach into the threads of the curse and change it, thereby changing its outcome, according to their will. Some used that power to change the world and others to preserve it, and both used it for power, so as they expanded their influence more and more people became aware of it, until there were two types of people: those who could feed upon that change and those who were fed upon.

“Over time the two types of people became separate, and within those that could change the world they divided further, into those who did what they wanted and those who did what they should. Now, these two tribes hated each other and battled on sight. They became known as the Light and the Dark. The Dark would become the witches who fed on people’s terror, while the Light would capture the witches to save the people and feed off them in their security, and both were terrible.

“Then one day the army of witch-hunters came across a bridge and from the other side the witches came and they met. Neither willing to give an inch and the Great One of the Light looked upon the battle and realized that it would never end until both tribes and the very world was destroyed. He cast a spell so powerful that the war ended there and then and the truce was born. The truce was carved into the soul of a mortal man, doomed to immortality, who carried the truce from then on, and into eternity.” Peter’s voice trailed off, delivering the final word into a dramatically fluttering candle-flame.

“There you have it,” Laura told Stiles, who looked a little stunned and ready to run, “The bullshit propaganda they feed us in our cribs. It’s politics, just as anything else, and far less epic than the powers would have you believe.”

“I really wasn’t smoking anything,” Stiles said. “Not a whiff. Swear to god. Or gods. Whatever you worship.”

“Remind me to strangle you, Derek,” Laura muttered, while Peter went off to sulk. “Look, this is the deal. There are the muggles, the normal folks, humans. Then there is us, yer a wizard 'Arry, and there's the order of the Phoenix and there's Deatheaters. There's good and bad in both the wizards and the muggles, but the wizards have better name-tags. You were a muggle, and now you're one of us.”

“Nudists?” Stiles asked hopefully.

“Ha-ha. No. We are fäe, we are all different. For instance, we,” Laura indicated herself and her family, “are wolves. Werewolves. Moonlight, howling, the works. Raw rabbit now and then, although that seems to be my problem, Derek sees them all like Thumper, although he has been known to take Flower down once or twice.” Stiles was young, he'd watch Bambi with her, the idea floated across her mind quickly.

“Okaaaay,” Stiles said in the special tone of voice adults use to placate children who didn't believe in Santa yet claimed they were. “I believe you.”

“The reason the girl collapsed is because you fed on her.” Laura drummed her fingers on the table. “And the reason you fed on her, is because you are not human. You are fäe; specifically you are an incubus.”

Stiles blinked, twitched, blinked again. “I know that word. Please tell me it doesn’t mean what I think it means—Laura, man, I’m not exactly experienced in the regard!” And he was blushing again, it was adorable. She sort of wanted to huggle him and make him watch Bambi with her, maybe after another rabbit, she was a warrior, dammit, she ate rabbits not rabbit food.

“Which is why there is only one girl in the ICU, you were lucky you didn't kill her.” Laura sighed. “You need to accept this. Everyone you touch will be in danger from now on. You adapt, or you will be killed.”

“Oh,” Stiles said, and didn’t believe her so hard, she could practically see the words “wow, someone is short on therapy budget this week,” paint themselves across his forehead. Time to get naked again, Laura thought with a sigh, humans never believed without a little show and tell.


	3. I was a teenage sex demon

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Laura sends her brother to feed their new house guest, Stiles only agrees because he saw Laura's boobs and Peter wonders if it's rude to throw people out of their bedroom to screw the headboard to the wall.

Derek's mouth was soft and warm, and his breath tasted of something rich and bitter with a hint of salt. Stiles could taste petrichor and ozone, and the first smell of elderflowers after a summer rain, something he didn't realize even had a taste, but was warm and heavy on his tongue as Derek ran the tip of his tongue over Stiles' teeth and just breathed him in. Stiles’ sucked on Derek's bottom lip, before Derek pulled back, his mouth still open, as Stiles did his best to breathe him in some more. It was better than kissing Jenny; it was like the Fourth of July was happening along his teeth and on his tongue.

With his palm on Stiles' jawbone Derek looked straight into Stiles' eyes. "Are you okay?" he asked, while his other hand was on Stiles' thigh, squeezing in what was supposed to be a reassuring manner, but wound up in the “the fuck, man, you’re asking me questions, and your hand is on me, oh my god, I’m supposed to think?” territory.

Even as that was building up, because let’s get real, nothing short of a swift death could shut Stiles up, Stiles had to pause for advanced dam-building and blinking. Derek's eyes were electric blue, like X-men mutant blue, and they hadn't been before, and Stiles could see himself reflected in them. Yeah, fuck logic, Stiles thought, licked his lips and leaned in for another kiss. 

This had been Laura's amazing solution to the "incubus problem" as she called it: that Derek take him upstairs to "feed" and Stiles had been so baffled by the presence of naked bosoms, although she had since pulled on her sweater and no bra!, that he had simply agreed when Derek took him by the hand and led him upstairs.

By now Stiles was getting a picture of what was going to happen here, and woah, slow down, buttercup. Stiles hoped that they could sit and trade kisses for hours, nothing adult. There was no urgency in those kisses, there was that lovely elderflower taste and Derek's hand hot on his thigh, and of course Stiles was hard, he was fifteen, he got hard for changes in the wind! The way Derek felt and tasted… Stiles felt that he could kiss him all night without end, just making out for the sake of making out. The kissing was that good he didn't need to go further, and he didn’t care how big a girl that made him. Not that there was anything wrong with being a girl, no-sir, and holy shit, did werewolves have mind-reading powers? He was so dead if they did and Laura heard what he just thought.

Derek pulled back. His lips were swollen and red, and Stiles' face burned from stubble rash and god it felt good, and hey, he was going to be murdered for this at school on Monday! Yeah, among his many cerebral life-choices having Derek’s stubble branded onto his face was a shining beacon (heh, beacon) of a piss-poor idea. He would die, torn into pieces by the entire female student body, and the LGBT ones, and a few straight kids for good measure, but it would have been worth it, just to have touched the stubble. There were clubs and societies dedicated to studying the stubble, there were charts and photos and calendars, and Stiles knew for a fact that half the calendar was marked with golden stars, for when the stubble was particularly attractive.

There was a speck of light on the dome of his mind just then, halfway between recollection and realization, that the clusters of stars were organized. Monthly-like. Kind of.

Derek licked his lips and Stiles pressed his together, extinguishing all but the essential neurons, and wondered if Derek would let him lean in for another kiss. Derek was being so good, he could see it, had barely used his tongue because he didn't want to push him, just let him have the slip slide of slow, lazy kisses. 

"Fuck, you smell good." Derek groaned, pushing his hand from Stiles' jaw down unto his neck. "Can I?" And Stiles was more than happy to agree. More kissing, sell a kidney, death by rendering of his flesh by the school’s only lesbian, it was all good, as long as kissing happened first.

Derek's hand went to his shoulder, pulling away his plaid overshirt and the collar of his tee to reveal his neck. Stiles had a momentary flash of “oh shit, werewolf-throat” before Derek kissed him there, whereupon he decided that werewolves could have all the neck fetishes they wanted because that felt amazing. Derek's mouth was hot and moist as opposed to wet, and his tongue slightly rough and his teeth blunt and sharp and oh, was that his other hand on his hip, pushing him back against the bed, pressing him down with his weight? Even without the petrichor and elderflower taste this was awesome.

Stiles must have said something because then Derek was chuckling, the hand on his hip travelling higher, up under his shirt and tee to the skin there and Stiles groaned, because Derek's hand was huge and rough and this was sex and Stiles was having sex with Deputy Hale, who all the girls in school were in love with, and Stiles had a crush on forever, and his higher brain function seemed to have been left in the car. 

"Can I?" Derek asked against his neck and Stiles, tried his best to nod, which just made Derek laugh harder, and then both hands were on the shoulders of his shirt, pushing it back, down over his arms and then off, across the floor. The huge hands skimmed up both Stiles’ arms, accompanied by a soft pleased growl of a sound, and then went to the hem of his tee, pulling it up over his head.

Oh god, Stiles thought, this was happening, he was going to have sex. He was going to have sex with Derek Hale. He thought it was at that point that he started hyperventilating.

The next thing he knew he was sat up with his head between his knees, Derek's hot hand on his shoulder blade as he coaxed him through a panic attack. "Breathe with me, just focus on my heartbeat." 

And Stiles could feel it where Derek held his hand, he could feel the thu-thump of his heart in the pad of Derek's thumb and it was soothing. And Derek was shirtless too, when did that happen? How did Stiles miss that happening? "Stupid panic attack," he muttered to himself and Derek laughed. 

"I'll get you some water," Derek said softly into Stiles' ear where he was almost leaning against him. "It's been a lot, I understand."

Stiles grabbed his hand when Derek went to get up. "I can do this," he said, "I want to do this." And he did, too much, that was where the whole performance anxiety came in, because people who looked like Stiles did not end up with people who looked like Derek. There was a whole balance thing to consider, somewhere some really old guy was being married for his money and Stiles was the way the universe balanced it out. That made sense, it certainly made more sense than Derek being into him, or that he was a sex demon who needed to feed in case he accidentally ate his school. Yep, it was the universe balancing itself out, that was it, all the petty cash spilling into karma box.

The fact that his love life was apparently worth a penny in the great big tin can in the sky actually made him feel better, which was just ironic.

"I'd be more reassured if you didn't sound like the little engine that could," Derek said. He stood up and his back was as glorious as Stiles remembered it, with the dark twists of tattoo and the way that the light caught it. "I have a better idea," he said. "It's late, we can just go to bed, I'm sure you've taken enough to get you through till morning." There was a hint of sarcasm there as he went to his dresser, on top of which was a tray with a bottle of water and a glass. He poured a glass of water for Stiles, holding it out. 

"But Laura said," Stiles protested as Derek put the glass in Stiles' hand.

"I know, and we gave it the old college try, you're just not ready and that's fine. We can do what we were doing until you are ready, it's just…" he stopped. "You're just not taking as much."

"What if I take too much?" Stiles asked around the glass of water. "Like with Jenny." He had put Jenny, who had been so nice and fun and awesome, into the ICU with a kiss, fuck, of course that thought terrified him. He didn't care what Laura said about it being okay, he didn't want to do that to anyone, least of all Derek. Creepy Mr Hale would kill him, probably because he wanted to be the one to kill Derek.

Derek grinned at him. "I'm fäe, Stiles, like you, I can push you away." It was a shit eating grin, a panty melter but it wasn't meant for that with Stiles, it was to reassure him, to show him it was okay, that everything was going to be okay. They were in a situation that was out of their control, but that didn't mean they had to be. "We'll just sleep, okay?" 

Stiles didn't want to sleep. The hottest man in the tri-county area wanted to have sex with him. He had been kissing him like he had enjoyed it and wasn't just doing it because he had to. He had... "Okay," Stiles said and then wondered where the hell that had come from.

Derek turned around, and fumbled with his buckle, and where Stiles was sat he could see the way his shoulders moved and the clack of the metal and then the slither of the belt being pulled free. Why the Hell had he agreed to just sleep? He was supposed to have sex with Derek, he was supposed to feed from him, and, he could feel the knot of anxiety welling up again, so he took a large drink of the water.

Derek didn't wear boxer shorts, but a pair of clingy black jersey Calvins, pressed tight to the ass that Lucifer fell from Heaven for. Stiles took another long swallow, because that ass! Seriously, he'd thought it was good in the unflattering uniform khakis but... For a second he wondered if all werewolves had hot asses, because Laura had turned out to have a rocking bod under the sweats she lived in – and he had seen Laura Hale naked! – but it would mean checking out Creepy Mr. Hale's ass, and he was never going to just call him Peter, he was always going to be Creepy Mr. Hale, and the thing was, you never knew with Creepy Mr. Hale whether or not he'd bite your head off for noticing his ass or just drop his pants and let you have a grope. It was one of the reasons that everyone called him Creepy Mr. Hale.

He was also kind of hairy, not hairy in that man gorilla George Michael I can braid my shoulder hair way, but nicely hairy with dark hairs Stiles just wanted to scratch his nails through, and he licked his lips, as Derek reached over to turn down the blanket, throwing pillows they clearly didn’t need across the bed. He was nicely haired: he didn't have a hairy back, which was good because that was a no go. He was just nicely dusted with it, and Stiles could feel it, the urge for the elderflower taste, like a Klein bottle inside him, the little he had flowing in it pouring out again, and licked his lips. He could see the curve of Derek's cock under his Calvins and he wanted it.

"Hungry?" Derek asked in a low voice, a sex operator voice and that made it better. "Your eyes are flashing." And Stiles didn't know what that meant, was it like an anime villain, it must have been, he realised, and Derek seemed to like it.

He took the two steps that separated them, took the glass from Stiles and threw it over his shoulder without care if it shattered, which it didn't, because the carpet in here felt like a fleet of small, woolly sheep, who found their little sheepy heaven flat and perplexing. Derek cupped one hand around the back of Stiles' head and the other went to his belt. It was easier like this, without the pressure, and without the questions and Stiles skimmed his hands up and down Derek's arms because of reasons, that was his excuse and he was sticking to it. 

Derek grinned into his mouth and used his hand to move Stiles’ so it was cupping Derek's ass, and then used that same, wonderful, blessed hand, to undo Stiles' belt with a quick and somewhat practiced movement, before popping the button and easing the zipper down. Then that magnificent, amazing hand slipped into the opening, through the slit of his boxers and cupped Stiles' cock.

It happened very quickly, Stiles arched, cried out and came into Derek's hand with no warning because it felt so good and Derek tasted of cloves and fire and copper and the sweet thick elderflower cordial that his Baba Stilinski used to give him, and.... that was embarrassing.

Stiles jerked back, apologizing, as Derek took his hand, the one covered in Stiles' cum, and licked. His eyes turned that bright, electric metal blue and there was no hint at all that Derek minded that Stiles had hair triggered. He seemed to like it, in fact. His tongue was making long, determined strokes over his palm and into the space between his fingers, and that was really hot whilst watching Stiles watch him do it. The half-formed apology on his lips fell away as his tongue reached out in an almost lick, like he was possibly licking Derek's hand vicariously, like he could taste the cum and the salt and the meat of Derek's hand. 

"You like that," Derek said and he didn't sound repentant in the least. "Your eyes are glowing." Stiles was baffled by this because his eyes didn't glow, Derek's eyes did this weird blue thing, but he must have just meant the skin around his eyes, his complexion.

It was like there were two people in Stiles, one of whom was reacting the way a teenager should react when confronted with a sex god licking their cum off their fingers, which was panicking, but the other knew what to do and what it wanted, and it was in charge. Right now Stiles was happy to let it take the lead, if only because it seemed to know what it was doing, which was pretty much all a guy could ask for, in the circumstances.

"How about I," Derek put both hands on the sides of Stiles' jeans and pushed them down, boxer shorts and all, until they were pooled around his ankles. Derek followed them down, dropping seamlessly to his knees, and started to lick. It was with those same long, slow strokes he had used on his hand, and it wasn't to provoke, or to encourage Stiles to get hard again, although that was a given, but he was cleaning, the same long grooming strokes that cats used on their fur. "You smell so fucking good." Derek growled into his pelvic bowl and his hands were like claws into the meat of his ass and Stiles suddenly loved that other part of himself, the one that hungered and tasted elderflower in kisses, because this – this was awesome!

The Sheriff in his sex education lessons had been clear that as good as sex was, it wasn't like it was in the movies and so he shouldn't be disappointed and he should be careful, and that sometimes sex could mean the world, it could mean everything, and sometimes it could mean nothing, and the only thing that popped into Stiles' head as Derek Hale knelt between his legs licking up sweat and cum was that clearly his dad either didn't know what he was talking about, or, thank every god who was ever worshipped, his dad had never had sex with Derek Hale.

Then Stiles spoke and surprised the hell out of himself with what he was saying, because that part of him that knew what it was doing and wanted and had the glowing flashing eyes, that was the part that was talking. "Fuck me," he said and it didn't sound broken. "I want," and it was almost a gaspy moan, and his mouth was open and he could almost taste the elderflower and ozone and copper and he wanted so bad.

So Derek lifted him, clean out of the pool of his jeans and practically threw him on the bed, following after him in a quick motion, mouth finding his and god the taste of him, as he fumbled off his jockey shorts with one hand and the other was on Stiles' shoulder bringing him closer and Stiles had his hands on Derek's back because and oh god this was as good as the licking, and he could just breathe Derek in, to push him, elderflower and all, into the place that hungered because...

The lube was cold and there at his ass and Stiles just groaned and let his legs fall open even wider because...

Because...

Oh hell, because....

And Derek wasn't doing anything, just rubbing and kissing and the elderflower and petrichor and copper taste of him filling Stiles' lungs as he wriggled and pushed and wanted more and was trying to push down on the finger at the same time as he thrust up into the kisses so Derek could get his tongue further and his finger deeper and ....

\---

Laura looked up at the ceiling and the heavy thumping as if she could stop it just by looking at it, before she walked over to her desk, opened the drawer and took out her purse, pulling out a ten dollar bill and offering it to Peter. "I will never doubt you again." She said by rote as the pictures rocked on their hooks.

Peter just rolled his eyes, "so much for the soundproofing." He agreed.

\---

Stiles had his arms around Derek's neck, cast and all as Derek rolled his hips and god it felt good and he tasted of elderflowers and Stiles had to cry out because it was too much and not enough and oh god how did people do this and he was rocking, pushing down and pulling back, and he had clunked Derek with his cast and Derek had just laughed and Derek's eyes were blue and god and there was the taste of elderflowers and pop rocks and why the hell had he been apprehensive, Derek wasn't just punching his V card, he was decimating it and it was, Derek rocked in a way that was even better than before and, Stiles keened, awesome.

\---

Laura looked at the clock when Peter came back from the tool shed with a power drill, a box of screws, some rawl plugs and a screwdriver which he placed on the kitchen counter. "You think you've got it bad," he said as she nursed a glass of Johnny Walker Black Label, "that's my bedroom wall they're thumping against."

"They have to stop soon." Laura whined and poured Peter a glass of the whiskey. "I wanna go to bed."

"An incubus on his first feed," Peter said sitting down on the kitchen stool and taking the glass, "we really should have gone to a hotel."

"Or sent them there." There was a crash from against the room as a painting gave way and landed hard against the tiled floor, the glass covering it shattering.

"Mental note. Build a guest house." She drawled.

"Or screw the headboard to the wall." Peter said, patting the powerdrill. Laura grinned at him before pouring another glass of the whiskey, just because werewolves couldn't get drunk didn't mean they couldn't commiserate with the good stuff.

\---

Derek had rolled over so that Stiles was perched above him, with his back bent and his legs splayed and his cast on the pillows. "Why was I worried?" he breathed into Derek's mouth, chasing that wonderful elderflower taste.

"I don't know," Derek said and brought his legs up so his knees were bent and it gave him enough traction to thrust. "Fuck, the way you smell," he said and put his hand on Stiles head and pulled him down the little distance to swallow his lips in a kiss. 

Stiles pulled his head back with a gasp as Derek's dick did things to him, things that had never been done before, because the angle was new and raw and fuck.

"Made for this," Derek was muttering, "made for cock, to take it, to take my cock, you want it, don't you, fuck, tell me you want it."

"I want it," Stiles groaned pushing down, anything to make this go on although part of his mind, part that he wasn't listening to, was pointing out that they had both come so many times that they were disgusting with sweat and cum and stray hairs and the sheets were just vile. "Give me more."

So Derek did.

\---

"So," Laura said, ignoring the thumping, safe in the knowledge that the watercolours had been taken from the wall, "any idea what we are going to do about the Sheriff?"

Peter rolled his shoulders before he poured more of the whiskey. "I'm just wondering if four AM is too late to order pizza." He admitted.

The thumping stopped, they both relaxed a little. "We do have to tell the Sheriff something." She admitted and emptied her glass before offering it back to her uncle. It had been full when they started and was starting to approach the dregs. They'd have to get more, although that bottle had been left over from Christmas.

"We'll wing it," Peter said. "Do you think they've stopped?" He asked.

"Too soon to tell." Laura groused, "it might just be a position change. We've had false alarms before." She slumped unto the table, "I don't need this," she said, "I wanna go to bed without thinking I'm in an earthquake. I didn't wake up this morning and say today will be the day I take an underage incubus into the pack, one who happens to be the only and beloved son of our amazing sheriff and Derek's boss, have to deal with Gerard Argent," at that Peter topped up her glass, "and have Deucalion, of all people, ask to court me."

"He did what?" Peter began.

"He wants me to be his Pyrrha," she said, "the one fäe in the dark who can marry a light fäe and he wants it to be me, and I'm flattered and all, but no."

"The last time I saw Deucalion he was wearing leather and the furs of his enemies." Peter grumbled, "I don't care if he's the king of the wolves, he's not good enough for you."

"Damn straight," Laura agreed, "he was in Hugo Boss this time, I think, definitely tailored, pinstripe," She said because Peter cared about those details and Peter was the sort of wolf who would go into the dark to kill Deucalion for not making an effort when trying to woo his niece. "I mean, I'm flattered, but he doesn't know me from Eve, let alone Adam, and," she stopped, swallowing the whiskey, "I think that's why he was so quick with Argent's head."

"A wooing gift? but you were a kid." Peter said, he mulled it over for a moment. "That's a commitment."

"There aren't many female alphas." Laura said bluntly, "it's a numbers game, I'm just the best candidate." She offered him a tired smile, "it would give him influence in the Light, I don't think for an instant it's for anything other than power."

"It's his look-out then," Peter said, "because you are a beautiful young woman with a bright future," he was cut off as the thumping began anew.

"Oh for fuck's sake, Derek," Laura whined. "You've gone well above and beyond the call of duty here. You can stop now."

Peter just patted his power drill, "I have some ideas."

\---

Stiles woke up pinned to the bed by Derek's forearm, the other one was draped across Derek's eyes. It was bright outside, Stiles was buzzing and all the aches and pains he expected after the previous night weren't there. He felt gross, but in the I am covered in a lot of stuff I would really rather not be covered in and most of it has dried and gotten flaky, but other than that he felt amazing. His arm didn't hurt. His ass didn't hurt, and considering how rough Derek had gotten at the end he was surprised at that, he wouldn't have minded he just wouldn't have been surprised, but he felt like he had just chugged a mega large blue slushie, the ones that made him run around in circles as a kid before his Dad banned them and kindly asked the convenience store not to sell them to his son. That was how it felt, like he was too big for his skin and the world was awesome and he just wanted to run and run and run.

He slithered out from under Derek's arm, which seriously weighed a ton, being careful to stuff a pillow into the place he had been, because he didn't want to wake Derek because he knew that the sort of sex that they had had was exhausting.

He had to swallow a giggle.

He had had sex.

He had had epic sex.

He had had epic mindbreaking glorious sex with Derek Hale.

And he'd woken up so knew it wasn't a dream!

And there was proof, Derek Hale was asleep in a bed that was disgusting with cum and sweat and spit and lube, and it was Stiles' cum and sweat and spit and lube... It was AWESOME!

He went into the bathroom, an adjoining Jack and Jill one that was Derek's alone because there was no one on the other side, and turned on the water, got it comfortable and took a long shower. In Derek Hale's bathroom. With Derek Hale's body wash and Derek Hale's loofah.

Even he was willing to admit that he had something of a theme going on, but he had had sex and it was not only awesome, it had been awesome with the hottest man in Beacon Hills, Mount Shasta and Klausonville by some measure, and it was good. He was considering singing in the shower but that would risk waking Derek, so he just kept laughing to himself like it was all a great and amazing joke that he couldn't believe. There was also the question of finding a song epic enough, it had to be by Queen, no one did big bombastic epic songs like Queen.

He got out of the shower, which was just a shower head over the bath, and dried himself off before padding quietly, towel wrapped around his hips like a kilt, back into the bedroom looking for his clothes.

Which were gone.

Sitting on the chest of drawers was a light coloured pair of jeans, Stiles couldn't be more specific because although it was day the room was dark, and a black hooded knit sweater. He pulled them on, the jeans were a little too big but nothing worrying, and then the sweater which swamped him, and it was clear that they had probably been laid out for him because they wouldn't have fit Derek, well, maybe the sweater would have. He went to the bed and shook Derek, "Derek," he hissed as the eyes opened blearily. "My clothes are gone."

"Peter," Derek grumbled and went to roll over, onto the pillow that Stiles had put under his arm, "does that." And Derek seemed to consider this a perfectly good answer. 

"Derek!" Stiles continued, poking him.

"You were 'sleep." Derek groused into the pillow. "Werewolves," he muttered something else that Stiles didn't quite catch then what was clearly, "laundry."

"So your uncle, Creepy Mr Hale, came in here whilst I was sleeping, collected the dirty clothes because he wanted to do laundry?" Stiles couldn't quite make it a question.

"Yeah," Derek said and then smacked his lips a couple of times and went back to sleep.

 

Peter was in the kitchen, standing behind the counter, with a cup of espresso in his hand still wearing the clothes from the night before. To be fair he did look like the sort of person who crept into a sleeping person's room to steal their laundry but before Stiles could try his "what the hell, man?" argument Peter looked him up and down and said, "you look much better in that, I'm glad Laura's jeans were a good fit. You two could trade clothes more often."

"There was nothing wrong with what I was wearing." Stiles protested climbing unto the kitchen stool.

"There are two place in this world where plaid is appropriate, the trash and the American Country Music awards, as this is neither of these it had to go."

"You crept into the room when I was asleep and stole my clothes, there are no words for how wrong this is." Peter just poured him a tumbler of juice and pushed it across the counter. 

"And what are you going to tell your dad?" Peter asked, "because Laura and I were debating that all the time the headboard was banging on the wall." He paused taking the skillet from the hook and placing it on the stove top, "now do you want bacon with your pancakes?" 

When Stiles shifted the collar of the oversized sweater fell around to show his neck and Peter licked his lips. "You're not making yourself any less creepy, you know." He took large swallows of the juice. "You'll be asking me next what it was like."

"Loud." Peter said taking out the pancake mix he had kept in the fridge, "which was not your fault, after all, the house is sound proofed, it's our fault for not properly securing the headboard to the wall."

"Oh god," Stiles moaned into the glass in pure embarrassment. "That's..."

"Which is why we were kind of glad that when we called your dad he said he'd had a second call out, they'd found that missing women in the woods, she turned up dead, so Laura has several hours to think up some sort of argument." Peter flipped the pancakes in the pan, "of course we're not glad that she's dead, we're glad that her family has some closure, but," he stopped, "I'm just digging myself a hole, clearly." 

Stiles laughed, he couldn't help himself, he was just so happy, everything was great today, even Creepy Mr Hale. "Can you tell him the truth?"

"Well, Stiles," Peter said emptying the pan onto the plate and sheet of kitchen paper he had put there, "that's up to you, if you promise to vouch for him then we can tell him everything, but it means if he reveals the fäe we will have to kill you both."

"Werewolves, sex demons, fairies, clearly, who's he going to tell?" Stiles said.

"We have three laws," Peter said trying to look stern but like Stiles he just seemed amused, "one, you must not endanger the truce. Two you must not reveal the fäe to humanity. Three, when you're old enough, you must pick a side. To reveal the fäe to a single human you must be willing to accept that human as a pet, it means that you will be responsible for him and anything he does. We needed your permission to do this, because it means he would be yours, do you understand?" Stiles nodded, and Peter smiled, plating up the pancakes and bacon.


	4. Life, love and sheriff's departments

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the morning after the night before

Despite the complete lack of sleep Laura showered and changed, making sure to brush out and blow-dry her hair. She just hoped the sheriff appreciated the effort she was making, not that he was ever going to know she lay back on the bed to button her jeans. She was pretty sure that Peter kept buying them a size smaller than she normally wore, but after a few hours they were very comfortable. Not as comfortable as her sweats, but few things were. She even eschewed her beloved flip flops for a slightly more publically acceptable pair of buckled Birkenstock sandals. She might have to wear boots with a heel in the winter, but it was only September and people wouldn't question open toes too much.

But this wasn't about her, or even her slobbing about the grocery store with one of Peter's unintelligible lists, this was about the newest member of her pack, and dammit where was her favorite black hooded knit sweater. Cursing Peter, because like most things that happened it was almost certainly his fault, she pulled a black vest on over her red bra, and over it an egg-plant colored knit sweater, then a heavy string of chains that pretended to be silver, but hopefully weren’t, else a very uncomfortable afternoon would follow. She topped it off with a floppy red beanie that brought out the red streaks in her hair. Then she looked at her feet and cursed again, because the shoes looked ridiculous. She was going to have to wear boots, which meant finding socks. She really hoped Stiles appreciated the hardships she went through for him.

She even did her makeup.

War paint done, she went into the kitchen to grab a cup of coffee and found her favorite black hooded sweater and her raspberry colored jeans, hanging off Stiles. So that was where it went, she thought, although to be fair the loose, stretched out neck showed off that lovely throat of his, and, strangely, underneath the layers of plaid and ill-fitting cotton the kid had a semi decent body. Of course that was to be expected, he was an incubus after all. 

It was hard to separate the boy before her, with his goofy expression and buzz cut, eating bacon – damnit, she knew that Peter had been holding out on her – with any of the succubi that she had encountered before. They had been perfectly aware of their appeal; they oozed the knowledge that they were beautiful and sexy and moved like silk. Stiles, on the other hand, fell over his own feet, didn't so much laugh as guffaw and currently had a stripe of egg yolk across his cheek. His mouth, however, was obscene, soft, almost deflated lips with a cupid's bow that was almost like someone had dragged a finger through a smear of paint. 

"You look nice," he said, pulling one of the coffee cups over to her so Peter could pour coffee from a carafe. "Going somewhere nice?"

"I'm going to meet your father," Laura said with a wide smile, "and to be honest I'd rather gouge out my eyes with a spoon." 

Peter, the master of tact and proficient interpreter of sarcasm, handed her a teaspoon with a grin.

"What are you going to tell him?" Stiles asked, his fork, with its delicious looking piece of bacon, hanging halfway to his mouth.

"The truth," Laura said. "It's not his fault he's gotten tangled up in this." She reached out and took a slice of the bacon off Stiles' plate and popped it into her mouth, letting it crunch between her teeth, all salt and grease blood and god she'd missed bacon. 

"I wish someone would tell me." Stiles said, his empty arm now curling around the plate to save what bacon he had left.

"Peter," Laura growled deep in her throat, her eyes flashing red.

"Omigod!" Stiles said, letting the bacon he was chewing fall out of his mouth, "that was so awesome, do it again." 

On the bright side, Laura was sure of was that Stiles was not going to have a negative reaction to their transformations, which was always a good quality in a housemate, not freaking out about biological quirks.

She offered him a smile and started rubbing the pad of her thumb over the back of his hand, between his thumb and the neighboring bone, in a reassuring gesture. "I'll show you." She cricked her neck and then her face started to change. It started with her eyes, shifting from dark brown to a bright primary red; her mouth fell open and her teeth elongated, as if they had been held back in her gums. Her forehead shifted, pushing up and out, forcing her eyebrows back into the side of her head. Her shoulders hunched as her ears reshaped themselves, into a point. Her forehead started to slope back, ridging with extra bone over her eyes for defense, as her ears shifted into points.

"I always thought that that would be hideously painful, and involve rolling around on the floor cursing," Stiles sounded completely nonplussed, but he smelled excited.

Through fangs and fur Peter laughed. "I love that movie," he said over his shoulder to Laura. Peter had transformed as well.

"Can I touch?" Stiles' had his free hand almost outstretched, not to Peter, but to Laura, whose transformation he had watched so carefully. She nodded, leaning up over the table so he could reach. He made a soft noise when he touched her face. "It's," he said under his breath, "does it hurt?"

"Everything worthwhile does." Peter said, and lifted the plates from the table with his claws to take them over to the sink. Laura hoped he wasn’t going to lick them clean. "You should know that by now, Stiles."

"It's," he stopped himself, looking for the word, "so awesome." He was genuinely excited, "oh my god," he was almost bouncing now, gone from distrust to fear to what appeared to be joy without pause. "Are you saying I can change like that?"

Laura flicked her eyes to Peter who looked about to say something but nipped it in the bud. "Your eyes change when you feed, or when you're overwhelmed with the hunger, but that'll be it." She was drumming her claws on the table, like it was normal, like she wasn't a sitting there in too small jeans and forehead which could support a pillar, never mind a floppy little beanie.

"So that's what Derek meant when he said my eyes were flashing." 

Peter laughed, rinsing off the plates in the sink. "I'm surprised he was looking at your eyes." He drawled. Laura growled at him again, before shaking off the transformation with a jerk of her head and roll of her shoulders. "Stiles," Peter said in his most patronizing history teacher voice. "Fäe are secretive even within their own society. It's the height of bad manners to ask another fäe what kind of fäe they are, and there are as many types as there are birds in the trees." Laura had the instant reaction to howl and scare the birds out of the trees just to prove Peter wrong. She managed to stop herself though. "And revealing what kind you are means that you are giving them a road map to your weaknesses. So don't do that, but it also means that we don't share our abilities or strengths. We can tell you what we know, but it's not a lot."

"What we do know, what everyone knows about succubi, is that they are mostly girls," Laura started, incautiously drawing a breath before continuing.

"Mostly because they kill male offspring," Peter added into the pause. Laura glared at him. "It's true."

"…and that they feed through sex and sexual energy,” she continued as though Peter hadn’t interrupted. "They can generate it where there was none but we don't know how. We know that they can kill through feeding, and will without control, but they don't have to. The fact that your dad is alive and well is proof enough of that."

"Then why did my mom die?" Stiles asked, "I mean if she's a succubus."

"I don't know." Laura said, "there can be lots of reasons. She might have reached the end of her natural life cycle. We do grow old and die, it just takes us a lot longer."

"How much longer?" Stiles asked, leaning forward in his elbows, wearing the earnest expression of a straight-A student being informed extra-credit opportunities were arising. Laura was impressed: he was asking intelligent questions but he wasn't pushing, or angry about it. He was treating it like it was some new aspect of something he already knew.

"We measure our lives in centuries, Stiles, not decades." Peter was leaning with his back against the sink, arms crossed but he looked almost sad. "Some of us even longer than that. Some of us might live a hundred years, some a hundred thousand, we're all different."

"Like the birds in the trees," Stiles said under his breath.

"And we look young until we don't," Peter added, "but we do grow old, and we do die, and we can be killed." Stiles nodded, biting back something that could have been words or possibly a snort. "For each of us it's different. One thing we have in common though is that given the chance humans would destroy us. When they dream, they dream of being like us, of being smoke, or flying, or never dying. They envy us, and what they envy they destroy."

"So we keep the secret," Laura said. "It's easier amongst your own kind, the fäe, and that is why it is one of our most sacred laws. They can never learn about us, but you're still a child by their laws so we have to tell your father." She finished her coffee and put the cup down on the counter. "We'll have to move you both in here, of course, until you can control your appetite."

Stiles frowned, although Laura had a feeling it was less a frown and more a congealed panic attack in its purest form. Considering last night, she couldn't blame him.

"Cheer up," she said, "it's not a bad thing." She reached across and pinched his cheek. "You get to be a part of the awesome that is the Hale pack." She grinned at him. "So we've got your back."

\--

Sheriff Stilinski had been at work for fourteen hours, on a shift that seemed never ending, because no sooner did he reach a stage where he could simply say, "that's it, I'm going home," something happened which needed the sheriff's personal attention. He had been about to go when the call came in that someone had collapsed at the party his son had been attending – damn if that hadn't done a number on him – and was just wrapping that up, when word came in that they had found the body of the missing Mary Rainer in the woods.

He was just about to go home and collapse into bed when Laura Hale knocked on his office door. "I hope you don't mind, Sheriff, I was wondering if we could have a word." In her hand she had a manila envelope, the sort that was used to hold photographs. 

His immediate thought went to his son, and she must have read it on his face because she beamed at him. "Oh, no," she said with a perfect smile. "Stiles is fine. When I left he was having breakfast with Peter and talking about heart healthy cooking."

"If he's being a bother..." He left it open because Stiles could be a bother. Let's face it, he thought grimly. He was a teenage boy, and Laura was a beautiful woman; of course he was being a bother. 

"If he wasn't welcome, sheriff, we wouldn't have invited him. But it is about Stiles, or more specifically about his mother." The look she offered him was consoling and a little patronizing.

The sheriff put his hand to his head and sighed. "Last night's party," he said. "I hoped this day would never come."

"You knew?" She sounded surprised by that.

"I was married to her for ten years, I noticed things." He scrubbed his hand over his face. "I just hoped," he stopped. "She assured me, her friend, Duke, assured me, that Stiles would be human, that whenever one of you mated with one of us the child was human."

Laura sighed and flopped into the chair facing the desk. "He should have been. Everything we know, everything we're taught, all of our history says he's human, but he's not." She shrugged then, putting the envelope on the table. "Peter found these for you. He thought it might make it easier to explain." He opened the flap and slid the glossy photos out. They had been done on photo paper from a home printer, but he smiled seeing them. The first one was his Nadia, just before they were married. She was at a party in a dark red dress smiling at the camera. The second was the same woman, perhaps fifteen years earlier. The third showed her at a party for GIs, the next was the 1920's, then a daguerreotype. After that it was paintings of the same woman, going back to at least the Renaissance. The Sheriff didn't know whether to frown or smile seeing them. It was his Nadia, the woman he loved and had clearly been loved by in return, smiling at him from the pictures.

"And now Stiles is?" Laura nodded. "Fuck." Laura nodded again as if she could understand at all. "So what do we do know?"

Laura sighed, pursing her lips in thought. "The easiest option is moving the two of you into the pack house for now. It means we have Stiles somewhere he can easily feed without threatening the population. What happened last night was an accident and I'm sure both of us would rather it never happened again."

"So are you…?" The sheriff, the man with the gun, not to blow his own horn, but a highly respectable man to boot, fumbled like a school boy. Hey ho and a bottle of rum, to adulthood. Luckily, Laura pulled a face and shook her head.

"I'm the alpha. It would make things complicated between him and Peter and Peter is…" She stopped, looking at her nails for a moment. "He's not been the same since the fire. It's safer not to, so I asked Derek to take care of it." She stopped again. "I hope you don't mind, I just thought it would be best to have him feed from someone who could say no, someone who was safe. That way Stiles has a safety net in case another accident happened."

"He's still a baby," the sheriff said, only a little petulant. It was only yesterday when he was toddling about the kitchen and fumbling with a sippy-cup – well, that actually was yesterday, because of the cast and excitement, the only difference being the sippy-cup was replaced by a Starbucks tumbler. 

"I have the same opinion about my brother," Laura said quietly. "I've spoken to the Willow and Stiles is under my care until he's old enough to declare. I'm trying to do this so he's got as much autonomy as possible, but of course there are going to be times when we clash over that. That's why I think it's best you move into the pack house. We have plenty of room and you already like Peter's cooking." 

"And what do we tell everyone? Oh, by the way, I had to move because my son is a soul sucking vampire."

Laura frowned and for a moment her eyes flashed red. "How about you moved into the Hale house because the two of us were having a relationship? We were worried about how Stiles and Derek would react, so we kept it a secret, but when they found out, last night at the hospital, because I was worried about you, and they were okay with it, we decided to move in together. How does that sound?"

"Like you've given this a lot of thought." 

"I had time," she said. "I don't know why Stiles is fäe. He shouldn't be, and I don't know a lot about succubi, they keep their secrets. All fäe do. I do know that if I let him loose on the streets of Beacon Hills, without corralling him, people will die and—" She hesitated. "You know Stiles. He'll go mental if people start dying around him, and then we'll have to put him down, or imprison him. This is the best of a crap shoot, sheriff, if you have any better alternatives."

"Would Nadia's family help?" 

Laura shook her head, before she looked at her hands where they sat in her lap. "I doubt it. They didn't help her when she was exiled, and…" She stopped, took a deep breath. "Sheriff, succubi tend to murder boy children, I don't know why." She watched the color drain from his face. "I don't even know why she was exiled, I just know my Mom took her in, which makes me think that it had something to do with the Argents, because she took in a defector and she wouldn't do that unless it had something to do with the blood feud." She rolled her shoulders again. "Do you want to go out for breakfast?" She looked at the clock which read eleven AM. "We might as well earn our heart failures, before Peter puts an end to our bacon-eating days." She levered herself out of the chair, "Another teenager in the house, Derek's only just outgrown it, the universe is laughing at me." She shook her head and then smiled at him. "And then there's Uncle Peter." 

The sheriff would later learn that Peter came into existence when the universe was fed up and decided it needed a good laugh at the expense of everything and everyone.

\--

Peter drove Stiles to school the following Monday, and, despite the vehement requests and tentative threats, immediately followed by Peter agreeing to the former and appearing cowed by the latter, that he drop him off a few blocks away from the school so that no one saw the two of them together, Peter drove him right up to the faculty parking and let him out of the car, then calling him back to offer him a twenty dollar bill, in front of the whole student body, for his lunch money.

"What the fuck?" Scott said, coming across to him from the side. "What the fucking fuck?"

"You have no idea," Stiles said, walking up the steps to the school's main entrance. "I have had the weirdest weekend." This part of the story was well rehearsed, thought up by Laura and approved by his Dad. He'd just have to get used to lying to everyone, because he had to keep the fäe secret, or they would kill not only him, but his father as well. A lie was a little thing in comparison. Peter had even suggested, although Derek had shushed him, that they might only kill his father to teach him, after all he was just a kid and they made mistakes. So he told Scott the first small lie, quickly followed by a pile of enormous untruths, sprinkled with truth.

"It turns out that my Dad and Laura Hale have been seeing each other for months, and when Jenny collapsed Dad was so scared that I might be next that it all just spilled out in front of me, because apparently I was the only reason that they were being secret and, as I didn't care, they decided to move in together. So, yeah, that happened, and because our house is way smaller, and I'm just a kid, it was decided, against my will, that we move into the house on the preserve and so yeah, now I'm living with creepy Mr. Hale."

It wasn't what he wanted to tell Scott, which was everything. He had always told Scott everything. He wanted to tell him about Lydia's party and how scared he was, and how Derek had taken him to see the Willow, who had worn a kimono and cartoon slippers, and how Laura turned into a werewolf, and he had seen her naked – he had seen Laura Hale naked – and then he had spent the best part of the weekend having mindboggling, sometimes violent, gloriously messy, wonderful, amazing, literally bed breaking – and hadn't that been embarrassing? – sex with Derek Hale. Just this morning he had woken up early and Derek was already awake and just pushed into him from behind, because Stiles was still loose and slick, and it was slow and lazy and sweet. Derek tasted like elderflowers and pop rocks and sex! Stiles had had sex. Lots of it, porn amounts of it, and Laura had wanted to keep him out of school today, so he could have more of it, but his Dad had been adamant about his education, but that was only because his Dad knew he was not only having sex, but having absurd amounts of it.

He had had to go bed shopping with Peter, which was mortifying, because they had literally broken the bed, and Derek had clawed the mattress because he was a werewolf, and Peter had explained that, although they could have several new sets of bedding, they were going to be cheap because they would have to be boiled every other day or so. What he'd actually said was, "I'll be waiting outside the door for a lull in activities, to snatch the sheets and boil them, because good sex is messy when one man is involved, with two the sheets become a Petri dish for Ebola, and coughing up your stomach is so unnecessary."

Stiles could say exactly none of that to Scott. Instead, he went with the time-tried tradition of small lie, heap of misleading truth: "They're pretty gross, truth be told, I mean, she makes him happy, and Creepy Mr. Hale, who is almost obscenely house proud by the way, I mean, obscenely, he pretty much carries around a dust buster in a holster, agrees with me about Dad's diet, so we went grocery shopping, and it turns out that Deputy Hale," and it was weird calling him that when less than four hours ago his cock had been in Derek's ass, and Derek bottomed! but he was at school and the last thing he needed was lynching because he was familiar with Derek, let alone grossly, messily intimate with him, several times a day, "is actually kinda awesome at FPSes, I mean, really good, and he's got a PS3 and I have an Xbox so clearly it was meant to be."

Scott butted his shoulder. "I have a Wii." He said. "We should have a game night. I wanna come and see your new room, and get crumbs on the living room carpet to see creepy Mr. Hale's dust buster." 

Stiles grinned, because no shit, that was going to be an awesome night (he'd have to work the sex around the gaming though, because gaming was cool, but sex was awesome too), but there was a sobering tint to it. Of course Scott believed him. Scott saw no reason not to believe him, and Scott being Scott wanted to provoke Peter, because Peter was a bit of an ass and Scott just didn't know he was a werewolf, because in Scott's world werewolves weren't real.

"Stiles," Lydia called, gliding down the corridor towards him. Something was different, Stiles thought as he looked at her, well-practiced in the art of looking at Lydia at not being noticed in return. For one thing, she was looking back at him, which in itself, whoa! For another, she was almost smiling. She looked beautiful: the morning sunlight behind her gave her a sort of rosy halo, and she had her bag, a Prada tote, hanging from her raised arm. The other arm she looped through Stiles' own and then glared at Scott. "About my party," she continued in a soft tone, "in private, Scott." She offered him a smile that blatantly told him to go away and not too nicely at that.

She took him to one of the more private areas around the science labs, because no one used them as a home room, and then it happened: Lydia was poking him in the chest. "If I'd known you needed a feed I could have taken care of it, Stiles," she said, "for god's sake, do you think you're the first fäe I've invited to a party." Stiles blinked at her, she wasn't supposed to know about that. "We could have dealt with it without all the fucking drama." She smiled then, her eyes wide and dark, her lipstick bubble gum pink. "Although I must admit the drama has certainly added a certain _je ne sais quoi_ to my parties."

"You're fäe?" he asked.

"Seriously, did you spend the last two days practicing your stupid?" She asked. "Or is it a natural consequence of all this," she waved her hands. "Did you spend any time at all with the Hales discussing the other fäe in their territory, or did you spend the whole weekend feeding?" She raised an eyebrow as if questioning him. "You're clearly a sex-fäe, so who was it? Laura, Peter, Derek?" she asked, and Stiles wasn't making this up in his head at all, Lydia was leering at him! "All three? I would have gone for all three."

"Derek," Stiles answered, too shocked to do anything but tell her the truth. "I—" 

She looked impressed for a moment, before she just looked pissed. "And why wasn't I told that there was another fäe in this human mess," she gestured around herself to gesture to the school. "Seriously, it would have been so much easier for everyone involved if someone had just bothered to tell me. I could have taken care of it."

"This has been a surprise to me, you know," he said. "You could at least act surprised."

"Stiles, honey," she said in a very low patronizing tone, "you must have known your parents were fäe." For a moment she was condescending, then she looked rather sad before she replaced it with a perfect blankness. "Oh, Stiles, you mean they didn't tell you?"

"My father's human," Stiles protested.

"No, that's impossible," Lydia said. Stiles shrugged. "No fäe human pairing has ever resulted in anything other than a human child. You're not human, clearly, or the Hales wouldn't have taken you in, so what are you?"

"I'm an incubus apparently." Stiles sighed. 

Lydia pinched his arm hard, grabbing a piece of his skin between two surprisingly strong fingers, completely ignoring the cast on the other wrist. "Never tell another fäe what you are! It's the height of rudeness to even ask, I was being rhetorical. You just gave me a road map to all your weaknesses." She shook her head. For a second there Stiles was treated to the sight of an uncertain Lydia, as though his life wasn't bizarre enough yet. Lydia, uncertain! But then she made up her mind and the uncertainty went away, like the snap of fingers in an "oh snap" gif. "I'm a maenad," she said, very quietly, but firmly. "I feed on groups enjoying themselves. I can whip them into a frenzy and cause riots. It means I have to be popular and throw lots of parties." She looked perfectly vacuous in that instance. "But is it true about incubii, that they're the best sex you'll ever have?" She bared her teeth and Stiles looked wild eyed. "Well, honey," she purred, all kitten, full claws, "you will tell me if you get a little peckish, okay?"

"I'm," he started, "Derek's feeding me." And Lydia just looped her arm through his and laughed like she knew something he didn't.

"You're free third period," she said, flipping her hair over her shoulder. "We will get together and talk, and then after school," she looked him up and down, "we're going shopping. I've spent my whole life surrounded by humans. It will be nice to have a friend I won't break." The glory of Lydia was such that she could make an invitation like that sound like an insult. "Peter can drive."

"What about Jackson?" Stiles couldn't help asking, because Jackson was Lydia's boyfriend, and he was a little unhinged, especially with a lacrosse mallet in his hands.

Lydia gave him that vapid wide eyed smile he figured was supposed to be condescending. "Oh honey," she said, using the endearment not to soothe him, but to remind him of his place. He was lower in the food chain than she was, had been for all of his high school life; it was probably habit by now, something she did with the human students and didn't realize she was doing with Stiles now. "You'll find out soon enough, and it's best you hear it from me: humans don't count."

\---

When Stiles went into homeroom Scott was waiting with his bag at his feet. "Seriously, dude," he said, "what the hell?" 

"I know!" Stiles agreed. "It's just carry over from the party fiasco. She wanted to make sure that she could possibly invite the sheriff's son without it involving the entire sheriff's department again." He put his head on the desk with a groan. "So she'll probably never invite me again and never know about the ten year plan." 

"You have to tell me everything." Scott said, perking up as the teacher came in with a new student, a tall, slim girl with large black eyes and black ringlets. She had a look of perpetual surprise and a rather sweet and shy smile when she looked around the class. "… later. Right now, I'm in love," Scott finished.

"We have a new student today," the teacher said. "This is Allison Argent. Allison, if you'll take a seat we can take roll call." With another of those soft, shy smiles, she hefted her bag over her shoulder and took the seat behind Scott, who looked like he had been selected for a great and glorious purpose, completely ignoring the simple fact it was the only free chair. 

All of that would have been perfectly normal, hormones and all, but the Lydia glared at him from across the room and mouthed 911.


	5. Except, life in Forks didn't feature this much teenage Angst

Facts of life were a little different when you’re a werewolf. Laura stretched her hind legs, her back, threw her head back ad howled at the moon, clawing at the dry leaves. It was a hunting night. It was a night of moonlit terror; the night on which the nature took her due in red blood. She could hear the faintest squeal of tires as the enormous jeep rolled into the clearing. She licked her lips. Yes. God, yes. There was a single passenger inside, a middle-aged man in good condition, her nose was telling her. Quite against her better judgment her tongue slapped her nose, lending addition moisture and thus a sharp burst of molecules hitherto unsmelled. 

She would have moaned with delight, but it was not a moaning night. It was a hunting night.

The car stopped, the lights winked out and the human inside nudged the door open.

“I’m not sure it’s such a good idea,” the Sheriff said, holding the door open with his knee and grabbing every package from the front seat. There were quite a few packages. Laura looked up at him and whined. “No, I absolutely understand. It’s just – won’t he smell it? I love that kid to bits, but he’s got the nose of a hound and he’s particularly sensitive to bacon.”

Laura growled.

“Sorry. I meant a wolf, of course. No hounds at all. I wonder why they even came to mind.”

A werewolf snort was a very indignant thing, and Laura rather hoped he appreciated it. She was vaguely aware that on a good day she could fix a stripe of leather around her neck and walk into the Beacon Hills library, causing no panic whatsoever, but it wasn’t a good day. Holy shit. There were Argents in Beacon Hills now, living, breathing Argents. That alone made her skin crawl and her fangs itch, right on the edge of her territory. Peter had called her as soon as Stiles told him, and bless the boy, he had no idea what he was saying, at the time. It was all Laura could do, to talk Peter down from stringing the girl from the rooftop, which was why she was in the woods now, panting, while Sheriff Stilinski unloaded his precious cargo of bacon. It had been the promise of bacon which saved the girl. An Argent attending school in her territory it was unthinkable.

“Here,” the Sheriff said, opening up a Styrofoam container and setting it down. Laura had a bit of a food-gasm. Sheriff Stilinski, she thought in appreciation, you know how to treat a girl. The burger was rare, just like she liked it, and wrapped in bacon. The single leaf of lettuce and a transparent slice of tomato present she indignantly nosed to the side. “I know, and I’m sorry about that, but apparently including those counts as a balanced meal.” The Sheriff bit into his own burger and closed his eyes in bliss. “I have to tell you, Peter is an excellent cook, but you can’t beat those.”

There was a large container of curly fries, very nearly a bucket, lay open and wafting inviting golden potato smell right there on the forest floor. Those were a little tricky to handle without opposable thumbs, but Laura didn’t spend her formative years catching airborne food in her mouth for nothing.

“If Stiles ever finds out, I’ll be eating peeled oranges and green salads for the rest of my life,” the Sheriff said in between a bit of burger with extra onions and a mouthful of curly fries. “You’d think he wasn’t addicted to deep-fried goods himself, by the way he pushes lettuce on me.”

He shuddered and Laura nudged his shoulder companionably. She’d have transformed to remind him that there was a good chance Stiles wouldn’t notice the smell of bacon, or anything about them at all, busy as he was, but that would require her to remember what exactly was Stiles busy doing, so she buried her nose in the greasy, bacon-rich container. That kid was going to keel over from over-feeding, and then Peter would feel obliged to ironically murder a banker, a hooker, a welfare-abuser, a socialite and what not. They should stop letting Peter watch anything these days. He was starting to watch Hannibal with a notebook.

“Do you think they’re done for the evening?” the Sheriff asked, staring down at his mostly-eaten burger. “Not that you aren’t good company, but god help me, I can’t deal with the silence.”

Laura indicated the far-off trees with her nose and, when the Sheriff turned to look, she shifted and brought her knees close to her chest. “Just for a minute, mind, I didn’t bring any clothes and the less pine needles up my ass I get, the happier I’ll be.”

“Honestly, I’m not sure which is worse,” he muttered, but returned to his burger. 

“It’s going to be an adjustment, yes,” she told him. “And the first few months are crucial. I think.” She was mostly sure on that.

“Months!”

“Peter swore up and down he screwed the headboard to the wall. We even took the bed off it's casters, we're looking into one of those things that closes the door automatically, you'd think we hadn't bothered to soundproof the house.”

“That doesn’t make me feel any better,” he said with a handful of fries jiggling on his lower lip. He looked so much like Stiles Laura had to giggle. “Aren’t you cold?”

“Hm? No, I’m fine.” She was fine – the wind was just picking up, but the weather was still blissfully warm, and anyway she wouldn’t be cold for hours after a transformation. “I’m not human, even if I look like one.”

“Does that mean I can stop worrying every time Stiles leaves the house without his jacket?”

“To be honest, I have no idea. I think so? Theoretically he should be able to withstand winter orgies—”

“I don’t wanna know!” The Sheriff swallowed the last of the burger and began stuffing his mouth with the fries. “Don’t tell me,” he added, looking and sounding more and more like Stiles with every twitch of the deep-fried curly potato bits. “Never tell me.”

“I really know how you feel,” she said, helping herself to a bunch and the remaining lungful of bacon-smell. Sadly, the bacon was only a memory, but what a memory! “Okay, I need to turn back; you might want to look away.”

The Sheriff had, by now, learned the wisdom of looking away when a naked woman told him to, so he closed his eyes and helped himself to more fries, while Laura let the moon do her work. This had been a lovely evening, she thought dreamily. She got a good run, a hamburger and plenty of bacon, with a heapload of fries on the side, so even with the knowledge that there were Argents in town, parked firmly in neutral, she could hold on to this moment of relaxation. Then she caught the scent.

All the hair on her back stood up and a growl tore itself from her throat. 

“What is it?” the Sheriff asked, swallowing the last of his food and getting to his feet. “Danger?”

Laura took off. Half a mile into the forest she remembered the Sheriff only had two legs and limited leaping power, so she stopped and barked, until she could hear his stumbling through the thick undergrowth. “I sure hope it’s not a rabbit,” he stammered when he caught up, catching his breath with effort. “Please tell me it’s not a rabbit.”

It was another three quarters of a mile, which Laura covered in a light trot and the Sheriff at a surprisingly firm-footed cross-country step. When they finally made it to the grove, Laura threw her head back and howled, while the Sheriff cursed. 

Laid out in on the forest floor there was a corpse of a young woman. Her hair was dark and her skin fair; she could have been in her twenties. There was no blood on or around her, at least not enough to suggest foul play. A few superficial scratches on her forearms and shins, no more.

“I need a coroner, immediately. I’m off the 442, two miles into the forest. I’ll text you the coordinates. There’s a dead body, no obvious marks,” the Sheriff said into his phone. “Make it snappy. She looks like she’s been her a while.”

Laura snapped her head up and stood up on her hind legs, reaching up until they were just legs, no prefix. “You can’t!” she hissed. “This is fäe business.”

“We’re not on the reservation. I have to report a dead body, and this is the second one like this.”

“This could be one of ours.”

“Is it a fäe?”

Laura hesitated. “No. But the killer could be.” Holy shit, she thought. There was a body in her territory, and alright, there were no Argents in her territory, but it wasn’t like she built a fence or posted signs. There were no bite marks, so no way in hell they were pinning it on them, but still, a body, this close to home. Laura squashed the impulse to tear through the forest and get to her pack. Peter was home. Peter would see them coming. This could be nothing, after all; don’t panic, don’t panic, don’t set Peter off. If this is nothing, it would be bad, if this is something, you’d have to deal with the something and Peter, besides.

“I’m the Sheriff, Laura.”

Laura shook her head, forgetting momentarily she was standing nude in the middle of the forest. “Look, this is very odd – she has no marks on her, she wasn’t shot, or struck, or strangled, not that I can smell, at least.”

“Could be poison.” The Sheriff shrugged and then swallowed nervously. “You don’t think…”

“No, of course not, I'd be able to smell that.” Laura strode forth to grasp his shoulder. “For one thing, and it kills me to say it, I happen to know Stiles has a thing for my brother. No way in hell he’d go round looking for tail when Derek is all too happy to roll over and lift his.”

“I did not need to hear that,” the Sheriff said, but he was smiling. “I mean, again.”

“Look at it this way: you haven't walked in on them yet.”

“Why would you put that image in my head, Laura, why?” He was smiling, all the same, even if it was a smile of exasperation. “Laura,” he said when the sirens began to wail in the distance. “You’re naked.” He was getting far too used to Laura being naked around him, and it hadn't even been a week since he and Stiles had moved in.

“Yeah, a wolf in a little tutu would be poorly received, don’t you think?”

“So would a naked woman in the middle of the forest, at a suspected murder scene.”

The sirens had given way to loud voices and trampling feet. “Oh shit,” Laura said, dropped to all fours and shifted, just in time for the officers to appear from the shadows.

“Chief,” the kid in charge said. “Oh shit.”

“Quite. The coroner is with you?”

“Yeah, she’ll be along in a minute.” The kid looked around, right past Laura, came back, looked again, and stared. “Um. Sheriff. There’s a wolf right here. Staring. Wolf.” The deputy wasn't making a lot of sense.

The squad pulled out their guns, to a man. Laura braced her hind paw among the leaves, ready to spring. Luckily, the Sheriff had it well in hand. 

“Shit. No, no, she’s not a wolf. It’s um. Wolfdog. Yes. She belongs to Laura Hale.”

“I’m pretty sure that’s a wolf, Sheriff.”

“Wolfdog. Very special breed. Imported from the UK. I just take her for walks.”

“Is she friendly?” the kid asked, even as one of the other officers coughed “whipped” into his palm. It seemed that their cover story took hold at the station, but then who could blame the Sheriff? “I’m doing Laura Hale” had to fly better than “I’m letting Derek Hale do my underage son to prevent a rash of bizarre deaths, and have moved to the Hale’s to cover it up”.

“I wouldn’t try kicking her, but I think she could stand to be petted. Come here,” the Sheriff said, extending a palm in invitation, and Laura, going against her every wolf instinct, padded to his side and plopped down, nosing into his hand. He was just lucky he still smelled of bacon.

“What’s she called?” the kid insisted, and Laura cursed. There would be a dog-lover in the force.

“Curly,” the Sheriff said, wiping his greasy fingers on his trousers. Laura threw him an incredulous look. “She’s a darling, really.”

I will murder you, Laura thought, sat on her haunches, and panted amiably, while the earnest kid Derek sometimes had beer with scratched behind her ears. I will murder all of you, and your families, and oooh, scratchies! and shifted her head so he could reach the sweet spot by her jaw.

*****

“I am terribly sorry,” the Sheriff said the moment Laura emerged from the shower wearing her fluffiest bathrobe.

“Curly? Really?”

“Did I hear curly? As in curly fries? Dad, have you been eating fries?” Stiles emerged from the shadows behind the fridge like an avenging spirit of healthy dining. “You know you’re not supposed to eat fries,” he said, pointing an accusing finger. “They’re bad for you.”

“They are also delicious.” The Sheriff smiled weakly, holding his hands up in surrender.

“Yeah, but full of trans-fats and salt and other junk. Don’t eat fries. Not even the curly ones, eat the sweet potato ones that Peter makes.” Stiles propped his fists on his hipbones and glared. “Less cholesterol and shit.” It would have been really impressive, proper posture and all, intent, force, if he weren’t wearing Derek’s boxer shorts and an array of bite marks from shoulder to hip.

The Sheriff covered his eyes and groaned, leaving Laura to laugh Stiles right out of the kitchen with two beers in his hand. Then it was up to her to stop the Sheriff from lunging after the kid, when he noticed the beverage in question. "Just take a deep breath,” she told him. “He’s not human now. Alcohol works differently and it’s only a beer.”

“He’s a child!”

“That’s one of the tricky ones,” Laura muttered, wringing the excess water out of her hair, "because in our world he's not. Don’t you have a murder to attend to?”

“Shit, right.” The Sheriff patted his pockets, grabbed the phone of the counter and looked at the timer. “You know, I have a moment. I really need to tell Stiles something about the beer.” He started towards the door and the stairs, but Laura coughed loudly.

“I wouldn’t, if I were you. Really.” She went to fix herself a cup of coffee. “I can hear them going at it again. Sorry.”

“What, again?” The Sheriff boggled at her and nearly dropped his phone. “I remember being a teenager, you know, and even then it wasn’t that often!" A strangled half-shout, half-moan came from upstairs, at which the Sheriff gave Laura a long look and ran out the door. Moments later she heard his cruiser start and get out of dodge with a squeal of tires.

A few moments after that a completely different set of tires disturbed the gravel outside their house. Laura panicked, curtailed a minor heart attack, canned the impulse to call Derek into a defense position, and finally frowned. It had to be a bike, and not a particularly heavy one. A teenager then. She took a deeper breath and relaxed – it was just Scott.

“Stiles, I’m going to kill you,” she muttered, making sure her neckline was at worst PG-13 and went to open the door. 

“Hi, Miss Hale,” Scott said. He was bent double and panting into his knees, his breath rattling around in his chest and it didn't sound too healthy. “Is Stiles in? He said he would be in.”

“He’s in, one moment. Can I get you something to drink?”

“Oh,” he said, gasped for breath, and continued, “yes, please,” another gasp, “a soda would be great.”

Laura smiled, nodded and turned around to get the soda and yell at Derek to please stop blowing Stiles and get him presentable instead (because to her eternal shame she could by now distinguish between anal, oral and a dozen other possibilities by the moans alone because they never closed the damn door), when several things started happening at once. 

First, she smelled Peter.

Second, she heard Scott gasp.

Third, she heard Peter say, in a low, gravelly voice, “What are you doing here, young man?”

Fourth, Scott started choking.

“Oh dear,” Peter said, carefully depositing his shopping on the veranda, and stared up at Laura. “What’s wrong with him?”

“I don’t know! You’re his teacher!”

“Maybe if you tied off your bathrobe now and then…”

“He was fine when he saw me, you shouldn’t have crept up on him like that! You scared him.”

“He sees me every working day at school!”

“Somehow I don’t think that helps!”

Scott had fallen to his knees and was desperately clutching his throat, while drawing long, wheezing breaths which couldn’t possibly contain enough oxygen. He might have been turning blue as they argued.

“Maybe it’s an allergy?”

“To what? We don’t spray the house with peanut oil!” Peter answered. “Well not anymore, at least,” Peter agreed. Scott, meanwhile, turned purple. 

“Scott, listen to me – do you have epinephrine?” Laura gripped his shoulder and saw him cast one wild look down her open cleavage and then her face and then his eyes started rolling helplessly. “Shit, he’s going into shock.” Somewhat, at least – he managed to tear one hand away from his throat and was patting himself down, with mixed results.

“Find his bag!” Laura yelled at Peter. “Oh god, please don’t die, Scott.”

“Well, here’s his backpack,” Peter said, holding it with two fingers as though it was a particularly rare specimen of poisonous Australian spider.

“Check for medicine!”

“Might as well check for the lost city of Atlantis,” Peter muttered, but started going through the contents all the same. “Book, notebook, phone, game, game, game, sore-throat medicine, free condoms, I think not… No syringes.”

Scott had started to make desperate noises, pointing at Peter and making grabby motions with his hands. “Sorry, sorry, but you’d think you’d be carrying medicine with you!” Laura snapped at him, rather unfairly, but then the kid was fighting for every breath and dying in her arms. Laura didn’t deal well with people dying in her arms. He was so little! Not in the physical sense, maybe, he was a fairly built kid, but that didn’t change the fact he was still a child and he was in distress, and there was nothing she could do! It was the fire all over again, sans the screaming, which somehow made it worse, made it more terrifying, because her brain was filling in the gaps and tearing her down, shred by shred. “Peter!”

“Bite him,” he suggested calmly.

“What? Are you—yes, you are insane, but…” Laura trailed off. This was not a bad plan, actually. She had leave to turn eight people without consequence, and Scott was Stiles’ friend. He was safe. A bite would cure his ills, but wouldn’t mess up his life too badly – training would give him control and he was a teenager, so he must have had the bare bones of keeping down the roaring tides of hormones at bay.

Then again, it was an idea Peter suggested, so maybe, just maybe it required a bit more thought.

Scott let out a pitiful yip, not unlike a hurt puppy, and something tender and motherly strangled the rest of Laura’s common sense. “It’s okay,” she whispered, pushing him back onto the gravel and hitching his shirt up. “Shh, everything’s going to be fine, don’t worry.”

If Scott wasn’t panicking before, he certainly was panicking now, and his heartbeat went through the roof and over the hills when Laura let her fangs out, and with them the rest of her werewolf face. There was a moment, the briefest, faintest moment of absolute silence inside Scott’s chest when her teeth pierced his skin and the fresh blood burst into her mouth, down her chin and onto the ground, but it was just a moment. She couldn’t actually feel the transformation take place; it was too subtle. The initial stages, especially, but this she sensed: seconds after the bite his heart rate calmed. His breathing mellowed out. He was taking in shallow gasps, but they were getting deeper, and he was no longer panicking. There was nothing measurable to it, not yet, but it had to take time, Laura told herself. A new werewolf needed to establish his physical boundaries, his limits, his brain needed a good feel of what was happening. The full transformation would take days but it was enough to stop the attack for now.

Of course, she’d never seen a bitten werewolf before, so this was all pure fucking conjecture.

“Is this supposed to happen?” she asked Peter, very quietly, praying under her breath that no one would come by, because explaining what was happening in Derek’s bedroom would be way easier than explaining why was she kneeling by a shell-shocked teenager with his blood all over her face and cleavage.

God damn it, her bathrobe was ruined.

“What the hell? Scott!” A teenaged-shaped missile, encased in a cloud of soap and sex, barreled past Laura and skidded to a stop on the gravel, running grabby hands over Scott’s chest. “What the hell? Call an ambulance! Derek, right now, call an ambulance, he’s bleeding!”

“She bit me!” Scott managed, scooting out of Laura’s lap and into Stiles’ on his ass and elbows. “She bit me, what the hell, Stiles? she’s gone and bit me!”

“Sweet Zombie Jesus, you’re bleeding, why’s no one calling an ambulance!” Stiles screamed, grabbing Scott by the shoulders and tucking him close, like the dearest toy. Scott had, by that time, gotten his metaphorical feet underneath him, and started to push him off. "Where's your inhaler?"

“Let go, dude, I feel fine.”

“You’re bleeding all over the place, you are not fine.”

“She bit me! With the teeth, what’s with the teeth?” Scott had focussed on that now and was like a dog with a bone, which Laura found to be a worrying analogy at the moment.

“Well, this is going to be awkward,” Peter said, letting Scott’s backpack drop to the floor.

“I thought he was dying,” Laura said stiffly.

“I wonder why, he only has a giant gaping wound in his side!” Stiles’ eyes flashed a vivid blue and Laura was sure she wasn’t imagining the clawing points at the tips of his fingers. "He has Asthma, he's got an inhaler, you're supposed to give him that and if it doesn't help call an ambulance, not bite him."

Scott, meanwhile, shrunk in on himself. His heart was beating wildly again, although thankfully with less alarm. The wound had stopped bleeding; theoretically it should be healed completely by the next morning. At least it’d better be, or else Derek would have to spend the night fucking Stiles into unconsciousness, and even then he’d collapse before Stiles did, and they were already buying plenty of energy drinks.

Thankfully, it turned out there were uses to Derek besides keeping teenaged incubi occupied for extended periods of time. She didn’t notice the precise moment he showed in the door, but he was standing by Laura now, with his palms extended, with his whole attention focused on Stiles. "You’re hurting Scott,” he was saying. “Stiles, you need to calm down.” It turned out getting Stiles to let go of people was easy as pie, because the moment the words penetrated his brain he dropped Scott like a hot potato and leapt three yards back, an impressive feat, considering he’d been kneeling on the ground. 

“Scott? Buddy? You hear me?” he started tentatively, with his hands stretched way behind his back and his ass on the ground. “You okay?”

“I’m fine,” Scott said, then frowned. “I feel fine. I mean, my side hurts, but—”

“Now that everyone is calm,” Peter said cheerfully, picking up his grocery bags, “it’s time for mango sherbets. If everyone promises not to breathe a word to the Sheriff, I will put rum in all of them.”

“Yes, by all means, let’s solve the situation with mangos!” Laura got to her feet and glared at Peter.

“Uh—Laura?” 

Laura turned to find Derek staring alternatively at her and Scott’s still bare midriff. Oops.

“Is that what I think it is?”

“He was dying!” she said defensively. “I had no choice.”

“Dying—What? Why was Scott dying? What did you do to him?” To Laura’s profound relief Stiles was glaring at Peter, not her. Welcome to the family, she thought tearfully. The ABC of being a Hale: always pack extra underwear; break no furniture (although he already violated that); crises are probably Peter’s fault; drink from the streams, not ponds; eat fresh; floss often.

“What did I do?”

“I had an asthma attack,” Scott said, picking himself up, finally. He prodded the bloody, jagged edges of the wound in his side and hissed. “It was pretty bad. She stopped it. I’m all good now.”

Derek turned to Laura. “You bit him over an asthma attack, why didn't you just call me or Stiles, he's Stiles' friend, he knows what to do and I'm a deputy, I know first aid?”

“She bit him? Why would she bite him?” Stiles started shaking Derek by the shoulder. “Laura, what’s with all the blood?”

“Ah,” she said. “Peter, go make the sherbets. I’ll shower. Again.” Another evening ruined. Great. She hoped blood washed out easily from bathrobes, else she would be very, very pissed. “Derek – if you would be so kind as to patch Scott up, please.”

*****

Fifteen minutes later Laura found herself in the kitchen again, dressed in sweatpants with her hair wrapped in a towel. “Right,” she told herself. “Right. I can go in and explain to a teenaged boy he’s now a werewolf for life. No problem at all. Totally easy.”

“We covered it already,” Peter said as soon as she walked in. “Top to bottom. Your hair smells nice.”

“Thanks, it’s a new shampoo. Never compliment me on my smell again, it's creepy.” She frowned at him.

“A werewolf?” Scott asked, looking between Laura and Peter with his jaw hanging loosely open. “You’ve got to be pulling my leg.”

“Yeah, really? ‘cause man, Derek's bit me more time than I can count and you know, I still don’t need to shave evrey day or go arroooooo.”

Scott turned to him. “Derek bit you? Repeatedly?”

“Um, subject change. Werewolf?”

“On another note, won’t that get you in trouble?” Derek had, up until that point, been standing in the corner with his arms folded across his chest, exuding manly-man menace and thunderous worry, but the moment he spoke he was five years old and standing over the piece’s of Mama’s favorite coffee cup. Laura very nearly cooed.

“I’ve leave to turn eight humans,” she said curtly. 

Derek drew the necessary lines in his head, and his inner five year old teared up, sniffled and retreated behind the screens of alpha-male scruff.

“They keep a tally?” Stiles asked. “I mean, isn’t there a census bureau, or something?”

“We keep balance.” Peter turned to the table with a half-peeled mango in one hand, and a knife in the other. “Upsetting the scales could lead to disastrous consequences.”

“You people are crazy.” Stiles brought up both his hands, let them fall to the table, then brought them up again, fingers extended, and began checking items off. “So once again from the top.” First finger goes down. “Scott gets here.” The ring finger circled a bit, then folded. “Scott has an asthma attack.” The rest of the fist folded, Stiles taps his fingertips on the table, then slams both his fists down onto it. “You bite Scott. Correct me if I’m wrong, isn’t there a enormous fucking leap there?”

“I thought he was dying!” Laura answered. 

“He’s had asthma problems since he ate that sunflower in second grade!”

“I don’t think sunflowers can cause asthma.” Derek pointed out.

“I dunno, but I sure as hell know it causes something when you munch them whole, with petals and stalk.” Peter shrugged his finger tapping the side of his mouth like he was considering it.

“Hey, that was on a dare! A triple dog dare” Scott pouted, but at the show of “really, Scott” eyebrows he sat up straight. “Anyway, I had asthma before.” He frowned, took a couple of breaths. “I feel fine now.”

“Well, I’m delighted to inform you asthma will not be a problem for you anymore,” Peter said. “To compensate, you will have to deal with overabundance of body hair and monthly periods of rage. According to Laura, the best way to deal with those is a raw rabbit, although personally I prefer decoupage, dressmaking is also strangely calming, but mostly I just like the smell of the glue.”

“What?” Scott asked.

“I thought you already told him.” Laura accused her uncle.

“Yeah, that went over great. Here, let me show you: Scott, you’re a werewolf now.” Scott rolled his eyes and snorted. 

Laura fixed Derek with a look. “I just had a shower. I’m not doing it.”

Derek let out a low, dog-like whine, but stepped up to table, sat down, shuddered and glared at Scott with his fangs peeking out of his mouth like curious little oysters. Scott gave the matter some consideration, then, very clearly, enunciated, “What. The. Fuck?"

“That’s more or less what will be happening to you,” Peter said, with far too much cheer, considering poor Scott was hyperventilating in his chair. With a certain amount of relief Laura noted that hyperventilation didn’t wreak havoc with his intake of oxygen, so clearly alpha points for her, conversion done right, ten out of ten and the mean judge gave her a thumbs-up. 

“What the actual—I can’t, what! You can’t! Werewolves aren't real, this isn't Forks and I'm sure as hell not called Jacob.” Maybe nine out of ten. Stiles looked mighty thoughtful just then, so maybe it was nine-and-a-half. She lost points for the twilight reference.

“Does that mean we can tell him stuff now?” he asked, bouncing in his seat in excitement. “Like, no more cover stories?”

“Yes,” Derek said.

“No,” Laura said.

“So which is it?” Stiles got to his feet at loomed over Derek, which made Laura cheer. Good job, kid, recognizing where your influence lies. Good job indeed. 

“It’s a give it a little more time,” Derek amended quickly, looking at Laura.

“Thank you.” Now, the quickest mental sorting known to man-kind, a death-glare aimed at Peter, and Laura, very slowly, began: “Scott – I’m very sorry. I wasn’t thinking. I genuinely thought you were about to go belly-up from lack of oxygen, brain-death, the works. I panicked. There’s no turning it back now.”

“That means… what?”

Laura took a deep breath. “That means you’re pack now. Means you belong to our family and we are responsible for your well-being.”

“My mom, though, I can’t just—”

“I mean that in a broad sense. We’re not kidnapping you.” She offered him what she hoped was a reassuring smile, but his expression suggested it had edged back into crazy person.

Scott looked between Stiles and Laura. “Stiles started hanging out with you and now he lives here. I mean, I’m sure it’s not a kidnapping, but the Sheriff – did you also bite Stiles? He doesn’t have asthma. Does that work for ADHD?”

“You don’t have to. Stiles is a bit of a special case, which I’m sure he’ll elaborate on the moment my back is turned, despite my warnings." She aimed her eyebrows at Stiles, they weren't as expressive as Derek's but she hoped that they would do. "No biting was involved on my part, I promise." Stiles had the good sense to pack in a flash of guilt in-between giddiness. Laura could imagine what was going through his head: skipping down a meadow with a flower-wreath in his hair, holding hands and singing pack songs. Teenaged boys. 

“The bare bones are these: I would like you to come over on full moons, for sleepovers. You absolutely cannot tell anyone. Anyone at all. Including your mother. I can stress how important that is, your lives are riding on it, but you'll be stronger, healthier than you've ever been. Do you understand?”

Scott bit his lip. “Will my mom be safe?”

“I don’t see any reason she wouldn’t be.” Peter answered, "and as I remember your mother is a fine looking lady, I'm sure we'd..." Laura cut him off with a frown. “Of course excepting the politics and new pack member—” Laura picked up the plate, which was still on the table, and threw it at Peter’s head with great force. He only ducked at the last minute. 

“Thank you for your input. As I said, I have leave to turn eight people, and perhaps if you were the Sheriff, there would be an investigation from our side because of power imbalances, this doesn't affect the politics at all. As it is, you’re just a kid, you will be free to go with your mom, you will be fine. I promise I will do all I can to minimize your involvement.”

“Right,” Scott said. “Okay.” He turned to Stiles. “So, do you really have a Playstation 3 here?”


	6. So this was one for the trophy cabinet

Laura Hale did not have a trophy cabinet, but if she did, first and foremost, largest of all the trophies, would be the one that said "congratulations on not killing Scott McCall today." It would have been a bit larger and just the tiniest bit shinier than the one she awarded herself for not hitting Gerard Argent in the face with a shoe, and much larger than the one she deserved for putting up with Peter.

On the bright side, Stiles was an easy child to live with. He played by the rules, most of which she agreed on, and was easily distracted with either her brother or a new book. He and Peter were getting along a little too well for most people's comfort -- all too often it involved Peter pretending to lech after Stiles and Stiles making comments about creepy uncles -- but they enjoyed themselves, which was weird, but acceptable. Most of their civilised conversations were about heart healthy foods, which Peter magically took to heart and had, to the Sheriff's eternal thanks, instituted a high fat diet that involved red meat and a lot of very oily fish. 

This had the unexpected disadvantage of the kitchen stinking of sardines most mornings. Laura had even developed something of a taste for them, even if she didn't need to eat sardines EVERY morning. Right now, however, she was sat on the couch and was congratulating herself on not using her alpha strength to leap across the living room and throw Scott face-first into the coffee table.

"But everyone will be there," Scott was repeating for the umpteenth time. Lydia was throwing a party to celebrate something big and important to teenagers and thus probably inconsequential, and Scott had been invited. Now the tricky bit was that the invitation was a token gesture offered to the newly expanded Hale Pack, which kudos to Lydia for extending, even when she knew not to expect attendance because it was Scott's first full moon. Lydia understood that, and who the fuck know how high school hierarchy worked, anyway, but for some reason Scott McCall couldn't get it into his thick curly head.

"Everyone but you," Peter said, because Peter was physically incapable of seeing an argument without making it worse. "Or Stiles." It would also be Stiles' first full moon with them, and while Laura would be with Scott, making sure he didn't hurt himself, or anyone else, Stiles would be with Derek -- because that was different to how they spent every other night.

"Scott, I'm not doing this to be cruel," Laura explained, patiently, hoping against hope that the seventeenth time was the charm. What was she doing wrong, anyway? Has she started speaking in cursive, or something? "I'm doing this because I'm trying to take responsibility for what I did. I bit you, and that is on me, and I'm not trying to underplay it, but you have to remember Scott, you are a werewolf now."

"So what, I'm going to go crazy on the full moon? Will I hurt someone?" He was being sarcastic now, and yay Laura, Queen of Mixed messages. She had spent the last three days trying to reassure him he wouldn't hurt anyone. Backtrack on that one, baby, while going forward. Go you!

"No, you won't, because you're going to be here and I'm not going to let you, but if you go to that party then you will hurt someone, you might even kill them, just because you wanted to be popular." She was doing her best to keep her tone even, but Scott was flashing his eyes and sprouting fur, and she had to bring on the alpha eyes to bring him down.

"But she's going to be there." It came out in a whine, and Laura took a deep breath. Of course there was a girl involved. Where was Cora when she needed to distract another teenage boy… Throwing Derek at Stiles worked so well, the kid was distracted to hell and back, even if they were buying a lot more Monster. Maybe now there were other cubs in the pack Cora could come home. Laura gave it a moment and shook her head. Nope, as good as Ms Hale's Brothel for Fäe Boys sounded, she wasn't going to run in. For one thing, brothels meant paperwork. Plus, it made her feel a bit like a pimp, although Scott would be good for Cora. He was sweet, if as stubborn as a mule.

"Okay," she took a deep calming breath through her nose. "Can't you ask her out on a date the night after, rather than just meet her at Lydia's monthly feed?" 

Peter was watching from the side, mostly amused, until that point, it was only when Scott uttered another whiny "but…" that he said, "You haven't asked her out."

Scott flushed and looked away, embarrassed. 

"You want to go to the party to meet her and show her how amazing you are, whilst attacking your classmates and ripping them apart with your teeth. Sound choice. You have my vote." Laura let her vocal chords rumble deep in her chest and Peter continued, tone unchanged, "Or you could text the girl and ask her to meet you the next day for coffee and spend the night here and not on an insane murder spree. Stiles has Lydia's number, if the girl is invited to her party we can get her number from her. As soon as Stiles comes back down from his shower." There was the blatant lie in what Peter was saying, because Stiles wasn't just having a shower. Well, unless that was an aspect of their relationship that Laura hadn't walked in on, and that made it the only one. "So what's her name?"

"Allison," Scott said.

Laura couldn't have said she made the decision to get up and slam Scott into the coffee table, but she did, with the words "Allison Argent?!" loud enough that Derek probably heard him through the soundproofing and almost certainly over whatever Stiles was doing because the crash of her slamming Scott through the coffee table was quickly followed by the slam of the upstairs door and the thudding of feet down the stairs. 

"Peter," she said turning, "call Lydia, get her to rescind her invitation to Scott, because he's not just going to RSVP that he can't make it, I'm invoking Alpha privilege."

Scott was clawing at her arm, trying to make her let go of him, kicking and lashing in his full and beautiful beta form. For a second she was proud of him, because most turned couldn't manage that before their first full moon. After the second passed, however, she kind of wanted to rip his throat out for his stupidity. Of course it was fucking Allison Argent, because she could never catch a fucking break.

"Laura!" Derek said, bursting into the living room like a really angry Michelangelo's David knock-off, minus the sling, with Stiles, who wearing only her brother's shorts, hot on his heels. Peter moved to intercept and grabbed Stiles with one hand, halting Derek with the other.

"He's trying to date a fucking Argent," Peter hissed and Derek stepped back, the implication in the gesture clear: he was leaving Scott to it. Stiles started walking forward, but Derek put his hand on his shoulder and pulled him back out of the room. Stiles wanted to interfere but this was pack and Laura wasn't going to kill him. Well, she wasn't going to kill him all the way; alpha wounds took longer to heal, but they would heal, eventually.

Peter spoke and his voice was soft, with Stiles behind him, out of the way of the four wolves, because no one was sure of Stiles' ability to heal just yet. "You were unaware, so you get a pass, this time," he said, and it was his teacher voice, the one that brooked no arguments, that told Scott if he argued Derek would rip his throat out. "You are Hale Pack, and you are a Light Fäe. The Argents are aligned to the Dark. You choose to go with them and we will, by fäe law, destroy you in such a way as to dissuade others from attempting it." Peter's voice was smooth like gravel. "And that's even without our bloodfeud into account. We have been at war with the Argents since before your Christ was born. You are Hale, she is Argent; if she gets the opportunity she will kill you, she will kill us all."

"She's not like that," Scott protested.

"They're all like that," Laura roared into his face. "The same way that her grandfather 'wasn't like that,'" she was drawling through her fangs as her fingers tightened on his throat, "when he accused my aunt of breaking the truce so that the elders would kill her. The same way that her father 'wasn't like that' when he petitioned the elders to take Hale land because of an imagined slight against his wife, the same way her aunt 'wasn't like that' when she burned this house to the ground and burned eight of us alive."

She let go of his neck and put her foot on his chest instead. "If I find out you were anywhere near this girl I will rip off your arms and beat you to death with them." She took a deep breath and twisted her head, cracking her neck and jaw before taking on her human form again. "I will give you to Peter and he's had hundreds of years to learn how to make it last. You are Light Fäe, and you will act like it." She finally let him go and stepped back. "I am going out because if I look at you any longer I am going to rip out your intestines, which will heal, by the way, but it will take a long time. I can understand you think she's different, but she's not, they never are." She threw her hair over her shoulder and stared at the wall. One, two, seventeen… 

"Peter, make sure Lydia knows that if she sees Scott with Allison I am to be told," she continued in a calmer voice, turning at her uncle. "Explain it to him, using smaller words this time. Stiles," she looked across at him, "put some damn clothes on." 

The air was full of the stink of him, of anger, blood and Stiles' pheromones, which were obviously on high alert because he was feeding when the thump had distracted them, bringing both him and Derek down the stairs at a run. With the pheromone stink and her anger firing her up she couldn't help but flash her eyes at him, saliva pooling in her mouth. That was what incubii did: they created desire out of nothing, and if she didn't get out of here now she was going to throw the boy down, one of them, although she wasn't sure which one, and ride him into the next ice age, and then she'd have to kill herself, because it was a goddamned lottery at this point and she had a fifty-fifty chance of riding a close relative.

 

Laura pulled on her boots in between steps and slapped her own ass just to see if her cell phone was in her jeans pocket,. All ready she gave the air one last sniff before she went out, slamming the door behind her. The stupid boy. She wanted to cut him some slack, because he was sixteen and new to the family, but there was cutting slack and then there was the fucking Argents in her territory.

She walked down the drive at a rapid pace, because she needed the walk more than she wanted to actually go somewhere, but the anger wouldn't let her pause and sniff the daisies, so she was a little surprised when a black car pulled up alongside her and the window rolled down. 

"I was just on my way into town," Deucalion said from the back seat, "Would you like a ride?"

"Fuck it," she said, and went around to the other side. Deucalion might have been a dark wolf but right now he wasn't Scott and he wasn't an Argent, and that allowed her to forgive a lot of his choices in life.

The car was not quite a limo, but it had a spacious back seat and there was a pile of furs draped across the leather upholstery, one of which she pulled into her hands as she sat down. There was another alpha wolf driving, a young looking one with blonde hair and a rather blunt face, but she didn't bother to acknowledge him, just crushed the pelt in her hands, rolling it between her palms to try and calm down. 

"Am I right in assuming," Deucalion said, reaching forward to the pocket in the seat in front of him and pulling a vacuum cup of coffee which he offered to her, "that you are more in need of this than I am right now?"

"It's…" She stopped, looking at the pelt. It was soft and white, possibly from an arctic fox, but it was old, and well worn by hands before hers. It was softer than she had thought it could be. She wanted to rub her face against it and possibly the rest of her skin as well.

"White chinchilla," he told her, aware of what she was doing even if he couldn't see it. Damn the werewolf nose. "It is the absolute height of decadence, isn't it? It belonged to the last Pyrrha. I find it is remarkably calming. You may keep it if you wish; as Pyrrha it would be yours by right."

"I'm not going to be Pyrrha," Laura said in a tired tone. She was running her thumbs down with the nap of the fur, which was dense and soft and fluffy. She was just so fed up with everything today that she wondered if she went to bed tonight and woke up after the full moon most of the problems would have solved themselves. Scott might actually realise how very dangerous he was right now for one. Sure, it might take a few human bystanders, but it would save Laura a stress headache. "I'm just--"

"You positively reek of anger, blood and incubus pheromones," Deucalion said, "so I'm guessing you and the boy fought. Believe me, right now you smell very good. It is a wonder young Aiden hasn't crashed the car."

"I fucked up," she said, "and it's taken three days to come back and bite me in the ass. It's not Stiles, this time, well, sort of, but not, it's," she sighed and popped open the lid on his coffee and took a long swallow. It was good and strong, black as his soul and probably just as expensive. "Stiles has this friend, Scott, and he's a sweet kid, but he came around to visit Stiles and Peter scared him and he had an asthma attack."

"Ah," Deucalion said, and it sounded like he understood everything from that. Perhaps he did; stranger things had happened.

"I thought he was dying, so I bit him." Aiden, the young alpha driving the car snorted out a laugh. "I heard that," she said glaring at him in the rearview mirror so he could see. "Kid's as stubborn as a fucking mule, and thinks he's in love with this teenage Argent that is attending their school like it's not in my territory." She handed him back the cup, making sure it was in his palm before she let it go. "And the Willow is negotiating with the Bridhe to find out why they're there, Peter is telling me to kill the girl and dump her on their doorstep, which is my right as they are on my territory and you don't know how fucking close I am."

"I only know one thing about the Argent incursion," he said, before he sipped at his coffee. For a second she thought of it like an indirect kiss, proof she had been watching too much anime. As if she ever needed them, anyway: the main impediment to Deucalion's suit was their allegiances, but it wasn't the only one. She knew better than to trust a wolf of the Dark, no matter how foul her temper or how good his manners. "It is not because it is your territory but that there are now three fäe in the high school, which is unique. As I understand, the girl has not yet declared to the Dark, but she is somewhat spoiled by her parents, who wanted her to attend a human school that might overlook her fäe attributes."

"What is she? Shinigami, like her grandfather, a sin eater like her father, an Erinye like her mother?"

"I have no idea." Deucalion answered. "She has not declared so other than her birth I know nothing. I cannot simply go to the nearest way station and look it up." He smiled at her, and she appreciated the pun. Deucalion was a good looking man, tall and wiry rather than broad like her brother or uncle, with a mop of sandy hair cut short enough to fall where it would without being in his way. He wore dark glasses to cover his blinded eyes which were propped attractively on a long, straight nose. He was not so much classically handsome as had a regal bearing about him, one that his rough and sharp features suited well. He looked like a statue of Caesar in his youth, but not like the one who had been in Xena, who was gorgeous, but had a look about him that suggested a roughness in his touch. Deucalion was a wolf, and it was in every movement he made, even to the simple action of licking the coffee from his lips. "Aiden," he said to his driver, who flicked his eyes to the rearview mirror. "I am told there is a very good steak house in the area. Would you like to accompany me to dinner, Alpha Hale?"

She looked at the fur in her hands, the mostly empty vacuum carafe of coffee, the man sitting next to her in his jeans and henley, and still managed to look more stylish than Laura did at her most made-up. "Fuck it," she said. "Alpha Deucalion, I would be honoured to join you for dinner." And it meant she could eat as much steak as she wanted without Peter judging her, which was worth having dinner with Deucalion. She might have been pissed, but right now she would take Scott over Peter judging her for what she ate.

 

\---

Peter rolled his neck, as Derek chased Stiles up the stairs. The two of them clearly required schooling on the subject of subtlety: there had been an all-around agreement that Scott was not to know about the two of them just yet, and those buffoons obviously needed reminding. That, however, could wait. 

"I am going to count to five," Peter said with a smile, "and then I'm going to catch you." Some days talking was a chore, and then some days every word was a delicious, wriggling morsel of fresh Italian cabbage sauteed in butter in his mouth. This was shaping up to be the former, but Peter was going to savour this anyway. "Then I'm going to fulfil my alpha's order to educate you. Run." He said it calmly, bending down to tie his shoelaces. "One."

Scott blinked at him blearily, still wearing his beta face.

Peter opened his mouth which was now full of fangs where it had not been before, "I don't want to do this in the house, blood is horrible to get out of a wool carpet, and smears tend to surprise you, even after a second wash. Two."

Scott scrambled out of the room, his extended claws catching on the door frame and leaving a series of deep gouges. Peter rolled his eyes as he said three. Some people didn't learn unless it was beaten into them, which was one of the greatest failings of the American school system, and a major advantage of schooling werewolves: it wasn't like he wouldn't heal. Scott had to learn that werewolves healed quickly, that short of bifurcation he had little to fear, and finally that pain which left no lasting damage was a tool. Peter was going to carve it into him like he was a jack-o-lantern, with a great big grin on his face. It had to be Peter, Derek could be soft when it came to these things. Scott should consider himself lucky.

If, along the way, he managed to accidentally impair Laura's teaching, that werewolves were dangerous, that Scott was dangerous, well… Peter was committed to the idea that Scott needed an education, and one must remember a good education should be multifaceted. 

"Four." 

Peter could hear Scott hit the tree line, stumble on a branch and he knew that Scott could hear him as he bent down to untie his shoes. It was easier to give chase barefoot. The sky outside was turning to dusk, good. Peter's eyes were brilliant blue, a rare colour among betas, but all the more terrifying for it. He debated shirking his pants but he decided the evening would be traumatic enough for Scott, what with the sweet, kind Laura flipping out completely, and if he came back half naked and covered in blood Stiles might consider himself propositioned. Peter had a teenage succubus pay attention to him once and while the experience was worthy of a repetition, moving into Derek's territory could result in tears and wobbling lips.

Outside, Scott was testing his claws on a tree.

With a grin Peter said "five."

\---

Stiles, still wearing his underwear, sat straddled across Derek's naked lap and licked his lips. "The moment is completely shot," he whined, stretching out over Derek, leaning on the palms he rested on the dips of his underarms.

"You're still hungry," Derek said, with his hands on Stiles' hips. There should have been disbelief there, he suspected. He should be a little surprised. But no, that all drowned in the pleasure. He liked touching Stiles, not that it was a shock, but there was more to this, Derek suspected than simple lust and hunger. Although Stiles often drove him to distraction he did like him, he liked how honest and open the boy was, and the way he smelled would drive a saint to sin and papacide. The books spoke of how a succubus' touch could drive a man mad, but they never mentioned the smell of him, burned rose wood, amber, sandalwood and musk, a heavy, smoky scent that lingered in Derek's nose long after he had passed him by. He smelt like sex and old furniture and fire, and he could drive a wolf mad.

Derek knew, intellectually, that it was the part of Stiles that was an incubus that caused such a scent, but the wolf just wanted to devour him whole, to ride him until satiation, to add salt and bitter musk to the smells, the sour sweet smell of sweat and the warmth of his breath turned foul over night. There were the other scents as well, melted American cheese, spiced fried potatoes, mint toothpaste, Axe body spray and Irish spring soap, the ylang ylang and jasmine in the washing powder on his clothes. But under it were those dark sex smells. Derek didn't even notice he was rolling his hips until Stiles chided him for it.

"Yeah, but--"

Stiles shook it off, his tongue flicking out to wet his lips, Derek wanted to catch it. He wanted to bite. As if Stiles wasn't already covered in dark red circles and bruises. No one was quite sure how well Stiles' healing worked, but well enough that he had lost his cast and only wore the wrist brace to school. The bruises and hickeys and bite marks kept perfectly well.

"Scott's going to be fine." Derek said, rubbing up against the taut swell of Stiles' ass and the seam of his own boxers in the cleft of his ass. No mortal man or fäe could be expected to resist that smell or the sight of the boy draping himself over him. Derek certainly couldn't. "He's a wolf now, he'll heal." He let his hand come up around Stiles' neck to pull him down. Stiles was still frowning. "You're hungry," Derek said, "I can practically taste it, feed." He pulled Stiles lower lip down with his teeth, nipping it softly before letting it slide back to cover Stiles' teeth. "Let me feed you."

"But," Stiles protested but it was a token gesture. As his tongue slipped out he was licking both their lips, they were so close, and Derek knew how heavy his hand would be on the back of his neck. Stiles was hot to the touch with the hunger coursing through him. Even if Derek didn't want it, Stiles would, because it was what Stiles was. Derek had grown up being taught that every fäe had served their purpose in the war, that they had evolved to suit the war, and if Derek's wolf was a warrior and a soldier, then Stiles was a spy, designed to infiltrate. His abilities were secretive, but he was born to seduce, and Derek wanted. He was hard against the cleft of Stiles' ass and that horrible rough seam.

Outside the house Peter howled his warning for Scott, but right now all Derek cared about was the boy draped across him, and pulling him down that final inch and into a kiss.

\---

The steak house wasn't one of a chain, but instead an old family restaurant just outside Beacon Hills proper, that was associated with an actual cattle farm so the meat was fresh. If they said it had been slaughtered twenty eight days before, it had been slaughtered twenty-eight days before, and they could prove it. They were an ethical farm, too, she knew because Peter bought their beef there, who used up as much of the cow as they could, bragging the only part they didn't have a use for, yet, was the moo. She knew everyone there though she hadn't been to the place in nearly two years.

"Laura," the hostess, Abi, said gliding over. Helpful host her shapely ass, it was only because Laura was with a man she didn't know, a fact made more interesting because of the gossip about how Laura had managed to bag the most eligible bachelor in Beacon Hills, unless one counted Uncle Peter, which Laura didn't, because Peter was a psychopath and her uncle. "It has been such a long time, let me get you seated." The curiosity was pouring off her in waves, even stronger than the smell of frying meat.

"Abi," Laura said with a fake smile. "Would it be a problem to have a quiet table, my editor and I are just taking a break and this is the best steakhouse in the county." She offered Abi another fake smile, the same one Abi had used at school that Laura remembered well: it was the one that had always made her want to smash her face in with her chemistry textbook. Laura made the mental note to buy a trophy cabinet from Ikea because she deserved those damn trophies for dealing with people like this.

"Certainly," Abi said with that artificial smile unique to people that had just had the best gossip in the county taken out from under them, to which Laura gave a mental whoop. "If you could follow me."

"Duke," Laura said, taking the other werewolf's hand, "the tables are close together, I hope you don't mind."

"Certainly not." He sounded like he was laughing. He had to know about the gossip and why she had lied to the hostess, but he seemed content with folding his cane with one hand, a thing he seemed practised at. "Of course, I'm told this place has the best steak in the county."

"The state," Laura corrected. "I hope it's not too loud for you." She was pandering to the hostess as she pulled out his chair for him, although she knew perfectly well he didn't need it. Deucalion might have been blind but he was far more capable than people gave him credit for, which wasn't unusual among blind folks, but in this case a Dark wolf who needed help was a dead wolf. In their world, Laura mused, weakness was a weapon, and one who became the Deucalion had to wield it well.

"I am fine, Laura." 

She took her own seat. "We'll have the rib eyes," she told Abi without waiting. "8 ounce each, black and blue, if that's fine by you, Duke?"

"Perfect, Laura, as always." His smile was a predator's.

"I'll get you some wine," Abi said, before leaning down to whisper in Laura's ear. "Your editor's hot." She didn't know that Deucalion could hear her, though by the theatricality of the whisper, she wouldn't have cared.

"A merlot would be wonderful, Abi, wasn't it?" Deucalion said. "And thank you for the compliment." Laura wasn't sure if Deucalion could hear Abi blush but the sight of it was beautiful. When Abi had gone to get their wine Deucalion folded his hands on the table. "Is there a reason I am not your date this evening?"

"Stiles," Laura answered with a shrug. "He's underage and we needed to move him into the house to cover for his feeding. The easiest excuse was that the Sheriff and I were having a relationship." Deucalion made a noise of acknowledgement, and Laura continued, not defensive in the slightest. "You're not jealous, are you? Because there is nothing between the Sheriff and I, or me and you for that matter."

"Laura," Deucalion said softly leaning forward as if he could see her. "You should know well enough by now that humans don't count, and even if they did, he is an adult male, he has what, thirty, forty years of life left? That is merely a blip in the grand scheme of things. Even if I did mind, I could simply wait him out."

Laura sighed. It was true, the Sheriff wouldn't be around forever and even her petty defiance of Deucalion would vanish then. 

"Why so deep a sigh? Have the Osmond brothers split?" Deucalion was smirking. Laura didn't think he ever resorted to outright mockery, but if he did, it had to look like this: a jab at her age, failing completely because she wasn't old enough to remember the Osmonds, except from things like thirty year reunion tours.

"You don't want me, Duke." When had abbreviating his name turned into a thing? "I'm just the best option for Pyrrha, I'm not deluding myself, and you won't be doing that either."

"Then you wrong me, Laura. You are the best option, but I would court you even if you were Dark, or not an alpha. I find you refreshing and very lovely, the smell of you, although covered with incubus pheromones at the moment, moves me. I look forward to hearing you speak. So perhaps I am courting you because you are right, you are the best option for my Pyrrha, but have you also considered that I have gone this long without marriage, without a Pyrrha, and to suddenly want one, when the truce with the Light is secure…"

"I could end the truce. I have the right. I could slaughter the Argents for what they have done, even now, and you know it." Her claws extended into the flesh of her palms, not far enough to be noticed, but far enough that only the most devoted fashionistas would consider them comfortable.

"And yet you do not," he answered, his tone even and calm, "because you are a wolf, and you want Gerard Argent to suffer. You want to know what it is that will undo your enemy, until his throat is in your mouth, and you want to know what it was he wanted from Nadezhda which is the reason you took in her son and her husband."

Laura just stared, because what he was saying was horrifying, it implied forethought, malice and vengefulness, but the one truly terrible thing was this: he was right.


	7. Is a party a good reason to get wasted?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sorry about the delay -  
> -  
> Peter chases Scott into the woods, Laura continues her dinner and Stiles, well Stiles is considering buying a cow.

Oh shit, Scott thought, tripping over a poorly thought out root and landing face-first in the crinkling leaves on the forest floor. He'd skidded a good twenty feet, he realized when he rolled onto his back to see the way he'd come. He must have been running fast. There was a stripe of dark, moist earth from about six feet away from the root to where he was lying, the kind of stripe that indicated someone created it with their face, and it was fresh.

In other news, something stunk. Scott pulled himself up onto his hands and knees and looked around in confusion. It was a sort of fungi smell, except thick and heavy in the air, like he was trying to breathe a raw mushroom. Also there was something metallic in the air, something which struck him as familiar in an unwelcome sort of way. A cursory inspection revealed a colony of small, hopeful mushrooms, poking their hats from between the roots of a tree fifty yards off, along with a shallow gash down his forearm, oozing bright red blood.

He thought maybe he could rationalize the cut, there were some rocks along the way, but when he poked it his finger came away sticky and the skin underneath seemed whole. Scott poked harder and discovered that the skin was entirely whole and not in the slightest damaged, yet the blood had to be fresh. He watched enough scary movies to know what fresh blood looked like.

Weird.

Unless it was one of the things Laura was talking about. God knew she said some outrageous stuff, and plenty of it did not make sense, although Scott was learning to anticipate the sudden outbursts of sense, kinda. Sometimes Laura would go off on a wild tangent which would leave him as baffled as anything, because who the hell could smell furniture, then he'd wake up in the middle of the night and get up to get some water and find himself walking with his eyes closed around a chair, and he would know it was a chair, even though he was equally sure there was no chair in that particular place previously. As it turned out soon enough (too soon in Scott's humble opinion) Peter had a thing for rearranging the furniture in the middle of the night if Scott stayed over. Scott was having some serious thoughts about the man. It was like being buddies with a gay burglar. Good for fashion choices and décor, if you are into semi-consensual makeovers, slightly odd in terms of feeling secure in his own home and furniture choices.

Also in terms of having to explain to your mother why her chair, of dubious sentimental value, got thrown out the window and replaced, in the middle of the night, with a blue velvet wing armchair. Scott didn't judge Peter for it, in fact he was grateful, he hated the damn thing, but throwing it out the window, really? This was what being in an anime must be like. You never know what was going to happen. Right know his history teacher was breaking into his house and rearranging the furniture, which Scott could tell apart by smell. Tomorrow, perhaps, the ugly couch mom bought cheap ten years ago and didn't get round to exchanging would go missing, and they would find a ransom note, and then small pieces of the couch in an envelope. Who knows or dared to dream? The worst thing was, he couldn't very well tell his mother that, any of that, because okay, he had tons of faith in his mother, but she was a nurse, and nurses were notoriously grounded. She'd believe the werewolf thing (because Scott had actual physical proof in the form of his own face), but Peter Hale's tendencies stretched the credibility of even the most open-minded of parents. Hell, Scott wasn't entirely certain they didn't stretch the credibility of reality.

Where was he anyway? Scott liked to think his knowledge of the woods was decent, but now he found himself turning in place, the full three-sixty, somehow knowing the directions even with the sun kind of invisible in the sky. That way was the fry kitchen. That way was the Hale house. Something awfully mushroomy that way. The town that way, between the birches. Something spicy, unfamiliar, started just below the grove over there, beckoning and repulsing him at the same time.

The very next moment something large and heavy slammed into him, felling him into the mushy ground face-first. Scott opened his mouth to scream when he felt a chunk of his side detach and walk away in a shower of blood, but his only success was inhaling a few dead leaves and whatever lived inside.

"Don't scream, it's not even a big wound," Peter said, getting off his back.

Scott turned onto his side and looked up, gasping for something he could breathe that wasn't sticky with forest floor. The smell of blood was everywhere, drowning out even the mushrooms. He chanced a look at his side and spat out the remains of the leaves. It looked bloody awful. Like zombie apocalypse awful.

"Not even a big wound!" he yelled, pushing himself to his feet. "I can see my intestines!"

"First of all, no, you don't. This is just the peritoneum, although I see how you'd make that mistake. Secondly, you claim you can see your intestines, yet you're getting up without trying to hold them in. This is good. The wolf instinct is taking over."

"What?" Scott asked, looking down at himself in confusing. Yeah, his guts were kind of visible, but also not, there was this wormy film covering them, glistening and wet with blood. He had the feeling he should be worried, he should be trying to stuff them back in, except they weren't really falling out, were they? 

And he felt kind of… fine. Despite the really serious gut wound. His heart was going into overdrive and every little piece of flora on the forest floor was in full Technicolor and crispy clear definition, or would be, if he could look away from the grinning, insufferable motley of smells and sounds standing before him. 

"I have to say, you are taking this better than I anticipated," Peter said, slowly clapping his hands, and really, Scott thought he might just have had enough. Blinding anger descended, and yes, it turned out he would get territorial over his own guts, so he charged his history teacher with a roar. Things were a bit of a blur after that, but every suddenly snapped into crystal clarity once his hands were bloody up to the elbows and he realized he had wet chunks of Peter's grinning face underneath his fingernails. 

Underneath his claws. Underneath his long, pointed claws, hard as wood, sprouting from his fingertips, dripping with blood and gore, scraps of meat and tendon. The blood was in every breath he took, drowning him, drowning everything, and it was even worse than smelling his own, because this overwhelmed the sky, painting it a dark, viscous red.

He missed asthma. Freaking out and running in a circle didn't seem like a good way to express his internal panic, didn't have the same urgency. Worst of all, Peter was still grinning at him, and he would never stop grinning again, because skulls were inherently happy and oh my fucking god!

Scott sank to the forest floor, somehow digging the bloody bits into his hair. "This isn't happening!"

"It is," Peter said, whistling only a little.

"How can you—What?"

"This is one of those learning by doing things. I always thought it was under-appreciated as a tool. Take the Civil War, for one: how much memorable it would be if we could publically whip a few kids every year, and make them pick cotton at the height of summer. I tell you, the rot of human rights had set in good and nothing is the same anymore."

Scott made himself look up. Peter grinned at him like only a skull could, but somehow the damage seemed… less. Scott narrowed his eyes and watched the skin slowly knit itself together, inch by agonizing inch.

"I don't want you to get the wrong idea," Peter said. "This is not a picnic for me, either. This hurts. And bleeds. And for your sake I hope your claws missed my shirt, because it was expensive." Scott opened his mouth to ask why, but Peter wasn't finished: "I want you to sit down and visualize all of that," he drew a circle over his face with a clawed hand, "On Allison's face. Or whoever you still talk to at school. Really think about it. She's dark-haired, isn't she? The lass with the dark curls, sweet, tiny face, spanning less than your claws. You probably wouldn't miss the eyeball. Human eyeballs are a funny, funny thing," he continued in a low growl, picking himself up off the bed of leaves and climbing over Scott until they were face to mangled face. "Now, Scott," he said, almost cheerfully. "Is this enough to fuel your nightmares for the foreseeable future, or do I have to talk Laura in letting you go to that party?"

Scott shook his head so fast he thought he might take off at a lark and in fact rather hoped he would take off at a lark, because as far as was his understanding of larks, they didn't look like Harvey Dent past the unfortunate meeting with a vat of acid.

"I'm so happy we got that out of the way," Peter said, getting to his feet and pulling Scott behind him, and some manhandling was definitely going on, because Scott didn't remember telling his feet to march. He was busy staring at his hands, at the blood and gore he'd wrecked and thinking, loudly, in no uncertain terms, that this could have been Stiles.

Or Allison.

Peter patted his shoulder consolingly. "What you're experiencing now is called acceptance. Slightly odd detour to take, straight from denial, but comforting. Not that I'm advocating against goring, it has its advantages. It's immensely satisfying, for one, a fact to which you will no doubt attest. But the paperwork is murder and Laura hates paperwork and I don't want to do it for her."

Paperwork?

*****

The steak was an exercise in perfection. It was one and a half inch thick, oozing juices all over the bits of the plate it didn't cover. In the rare instance when Laura could tear her gaze away from the meat there was a bowl of mashed potatoes, swimming with butter, and more fresh butter on the side. There was a dainty steak knife and a heavy fork on the side, and Laura just wanted to drop all pretenses and dive face-first onto that plate, tearing into the rare meat with her teeth.

One had to consider wearing some sort of a necklace, she thought. Maybe a tiny werewolf backpack, with kindling and matches. And steak, the rational part of her insisted, because rabbit was not quite the same. More bones. More furballs to hack up afterwards, no matter how carefully it was skinned, even though she normally didn't bother with that.

"Are you going to eat the steak, or are you going to make love to it some more?" Deucalion asked, wearing what he probably thought of as a smile, but what Laura couldn't help but classify as a smirk.

"I don't see why I shouldn't, it sure beats some of the guys I dated."

"No arguments here." Deucalion picked up the knife and sliced the steak in half, then halved one of the halves, then did it again and again until he had a bite-sized pieces speared on his fork. "Delicious."

Laura shook her head and laughed, picking up her utensils. "Mmm. I really think 'delicious' is putting it mildly."

"Stupendous?"

"Stupendous doesn't make me think steak. It's more of an architectural kind of word, isn't it?" Stupendous made her think of the cathedral in France, the one with the angels and monsters and columns. At least she thought there were columns.

"I'd go with something less human in nature, but alright. I'll concede the point."

Laura spooned some of the potatoes onto her plate. Not quite the taste and texture a wolf would have preferred on her palate, not when there was raw steak, but the human form liked the potatoes, and Laura wasn't ascetic, she would indulge her whims, especially when there was clear, yellow butter pooling in the potato pockets.

It puzzled her when she saw Deucalion do likewise, sculpting a neat ball of the potatoes first and then arranging it next to the steak on his plate, feeling for space with his fork, nudging the steak aside, when necessary. The spectacle of the blind man spooning potatoes was puzzling enough, more so when she saw him reach for another spoonful.

"I didn't figure you for the vegetarian kind," she said, waving her fork.

"What peculiar age we live in, that a man can be accused of vegetarianism with an enormous rare steak on his plate." He set aside the spoon and offered her a blinding grin. Laura, despite herself, let it fill her up with good humor as well.

"You know what I mean," she said, scooping some of the vegetable side-dish into her mouth. The butter stained her lips a glistening layer of delicious fat. "Your kind usually prefers the food raw and wriggling."

What she meant was that for many reasons the Dark Wolves preferred to leave their human impulses unsatisfied, denying them existence, in many cases. Such as the propensity for cooked vegetables. She got that, somewhat. The wolf would gnaw on turnips and carrots, but the moment they touched boiling water the wolf was out of the picture, and to Laura's unsurprised revelation, the wolf was very much out of the picture now. Yup, she double-checked, out of frame and curled up in a basket, while she broke bread with an enemy.

"I'm not particularly keen on fish," Deucalion said. "Too juicy, too sweet."

Laura frowned and opened her mouth to comment on the random appearance of fish in the conversation, over the cow bits, when she remembered. Right. Fish, so juicy sweet, give it to us raw and wriggling. The thought added onto the neat stack of already piled up tidbits of good humor and Laura laughed, dropping the cutlery onto the table and throwing her head back.

"Thanks," she said, grinning widely. "Oh, hell. Thank you."

"My pleasure." Deucalion answered her smile and reached for his glass.

*****

Stiles was thinking. This was momentous, so excuse him for noticing and patting himself on the back for the thinking process. Well, figuratively patting himself on the back, his hands were kind of busy. As was his mouth, incidentally, but hey, he didn't actually need his mouth for thinking, despite what the coach would tell you. No, Stiles could think perfectly well with his mouth closed, or you know, filled.

"Hey, can you pat me on the back?" he asked conversationally, lifting his head because cramps. It hadn't happened yet, but Stiles did some serious reading, and cramps were a possibility. Could you even get carpal tunnel syndrome in your neck? "And could you hand me my phone?"

"What?" Derek managed. His toes were curled into the mattress, but not actually ripping the bedding to shreds. Hm. Stiles was doing something wrong. 

"I really need to know if you can get carpal tunnel syndrome in your neck," he said, then lowered his head again to suck at the head of Derek's cock. "It's vital that I know this. The future of your blow job is at stake."

"Stiles!"

"I'm just saying, what if I get a cramp or something? I have been going to it for a good long while."

Derek let out a long wheeze, while his face contorted in that special expression that told Stiles that he was about to be pinned to a flat surface. In this case the surface was a bed, which Derek accomplished by somehow pivoting on the balls of his feet from a lying-down position into the air and onto Stiles. 

"You," he said slowly, grinding his erection into the space between Stiles' parted thighs, "Are an insufferable little smartass."

"Hey, if you think my ass is smart, you really should have a chat with my brain, because I have to tell you, I'm no slouch in that department, either."

"Noted," Derek said, before looking away and frowning. "You father is coming."

"Fuuuck. I mean, no, obviously, I love my dad. Is this the time? And I was only just getting to the good part!" Every kid should go through a mystical transformation, Stiles was thinking. You get to discover so much cool stuff about yourself and the people around you! For one thing, the whole feeding-on-sex thing, that was great, that was fantastic, curly-fries and bacon, and just now Stiles was discovering these things called nuance. In flavor. Because fuck if Derek didn't taste his best when he was helplessly begging for an orgasm, twenty minutes into a slow, slow blowjob.

"We have ten minutes," Derek said.

"Ten minutes!" Stiles let out a long whine. "That's not enough time!"

"You want to keep whining, or do you want to finish the job?"

"Slave driver," Stiles muttered, and really, the only reason he deigned to push Derek back onto the mattress and resume his ministrations was because he'd got him primed and ready for the master stroke of the night, which was the patented Stiles Hoover Dam. Well, it was less a dam then a really enthusiastic and sloppy sucking, but as far as puns go, Stiles would take it.

As would Derek, he thought with satisfaction when the werewolf arched his back and howled. 

Stiles took a cursory shower, threw on a pair of sweats and a t-shirt, and sauntered downstairs leaving Derek to trail after him on weak knees. He couldn't help himself from flashing a self-satisfied grin at every appliance, because fuck you, blender, you may make the best yoghurt smoothies in the neighborhood, but guess who just made Derek Hale lose his cool. As if Stiles needed the confirmation, the Sheriff walked in with his eyes half-closed, taking his steps one at a time, carefully listening for any noises. Ha! Stiles thought. You know you done good when your father walks into the kitchen doing a rapid jigsaw puzzle with his reality filters. His mental hands – no, that sounded weird, could you even have mental hands? Mental tentacles? Now there was a thought, tentacles. Stiles made a mental note to look up that weird Japanese manga he'd been saving for when Derek is away on a conference or something. Or at work. Or wandering about the woods with someone he maybe liked a little and wanted to take him – or her, Stiles wasn't going to judge – on long walks, so that they could exchange thoughts on yoghurt and stuff.

"Dad, hi!"

"Stiles." Then, with an air of heavy iron curtain of paternal disapproval, "Derek."

"Sir." Derek actually went full on patrol on inspection, spine straight as though the sheriff's son hadn't just been making him curl up his werewolf toes. Or maybe it was exactly like that. Stiles was more fluent in sex-kitten!Derek than he was in dutiful subordinate!Derek.

Dad still hadn't said anything, which struck Stiles as odd after a minute or two. "Dad? You okay?"

"What? Yes, I'm fine."

There was fine and there was fine and there was the distracted "what? Yes, I'm fine." Stiles dropped the metaphorical everything and dropped into a chair. "Dad?"

"It's not your concern. Although Derek, I want a word with you."

Stiles bristled. "What, you gonna talk to Derek now?"

"Stiles, at this point I'd be happy if I could scrub Derek's face entirely from my long-term memory – no offence, son – but this is a department business."

"None taken. Sir." Derek, if possible, stood even straighter.

"Come on, this is not the office, you're home!" Stiles protested, somewhat louder than he originally intended.

"Outside, please," the sheriff said, pivoting on his heel.

Stiles started following, but Derek had the foresight to lock the door in his face, the asshole. See if he got any off Stiles ever again!

…well, today. Actually, scratch that, dad was onto something and it was making Stiles hungry. He went to the fridge, hoping to sate the hollow in his stomach with bacon, or ham, but due to Peter's unholy influence there was only three kinds of lettuce and a container of tomatoes there, along with sprouts, mango, kiwi, avocado, five strips of bacon, seven onions, a few cloves of garlic. He could make a salad. There ought to be some dressing in the cupboards, certainly some basil on the porch. Oregano even. But a salad wasn't going to cut it, he needed something with substance, something real.

Oh thank god, there was milk. Sweet, delicious milk. Stiles grabbed the bottle and chugged it straight, no additives, other than what the cow put in it herself. He should buy a cow. Soon as he had a steady source of income he ought to buy a cow which could provide milk on a daily basis. Those half-fat lousy substitutes didn't even compare. That meant he would have to learn how to milk a cow, because it would have been his cow and he'd be damned if someone was mooching his milk. He could call it Steve. Or Iron Man. Depending on the color.

A cow, yeah. Stiles added the cow to his list of purchases, along with a flatbed TV he could hang on the ceiling of the bedroom, to watch while he was on his back, and a pair of puppy slippers for Derek.

"Did you just…" 

Stiles blinked and set on inhaling enough air through his nose to detach his mouth from the bottle. Dad and Derek were staring at him with equal expressions of horror and amusement on their faces, although upon closer inspection Derek was veering into WTF territory rather further than Dad, who seemed more exasperated than he was horrified.

"What?"

"Did you just drink a litre of milk in one go?" Derek asked.

Stiles looked down at the half-empty bottle, than back up at Derek. "Yes?"

"A litre of milk?"

"I like milk! It's good for my bones," Stiles said defensively, eyeing the rest of the milk. It looked so delicious, sloshing in the glass bottle, left to right, catching up with the bubbles on its surface, than going back again. The bottle was uncapped before he could think about it.

"I once had to bribe him with a chocolate square for every mouthful of cereal," Dad said to Derek. "Do you have anything that would send that attitude into the past? I would save me so much time and chocolate."

"The fäe like milk." Derek went to the cupboard in which they kept the tea, flicking the kettle on along the way. "Milk and honey. A living thing that had never been alive. There's sustenance in it that doesn't require a bargain, like meat and plants."

The sheriff opened the fridge, grimaced, closed it again and started going through the cupboards in search of things that not only had once been alive, but had oinked its way through a trout. "I don't see you or Laura being keen on cereal."

"Yes, but we are wolves. We feed on blood and flesh," Derek said in a slightly faraway voice, completely ignoring dad's cough which to Stiles' ears sounded suspiciously like "curly fries and bacon." "For the fäe that feed on the energy of the living, like Stiles, it's a little more complicated."

Stiles slammed his hands on the table. "Woah there, pause, pause. Are you saying I gotta be bargaining with a potato? What? How am I going to have curly fries!"

"What? No, that's not how that works!" Derek was looking at him with his entire face following his eyebrows into his hairline.

"Then how does it work!"

"Stop yelling!"

"You're the one who's yelling!"

"Both of you, quiet!" The sheriff got between them, snatching the bottle out of Stiles' hands, before he could slam it on the table again.

"Dad! He said I won't be able to have curly fries without selling my soul to a potato!"

"That's not what he said, Stiles," the sheriff said patiently. "Sit down straight."

"That's what he implied, anyway."

"Not true."

"Curly fries, dad!"

"Lord give me strength. Derek, please make this make sense, somehow. Without taking curly fries off the menu permanently, because if that happens I will shoot Stiles to shut him up and then I will have to shoot myself."

Derek had the good grace to look panicked and this close to step dancing. "I mean—It's complicated? The food, I mean the food that isn't sex—the stuff that isn't what the incubi feed on, comes from the earth, and the earth will have it back, that's all, from us when we die, but the fäe that don't feed on the things that grow need to give back what they take but don't need, so you might find you need more feeding after eating."

Stiles relaxed. "I get it."

His dad gave him a long look. "You do? That was barely coherent."

"It's Lion King, dad! Lions die and feed the grass, grass feeds the antelopes, the lions of future past eat the antelopes. Circle of life!"

"Alright, I get it." His dad shook his head and let out a huff. "I actually get it. That makes sense. Thank god Disney took the time to explain fairy feeding policies, where would we be without it."

"Great." Stiles beamed. "Curly fries, fuck yeah!"

"Alright, Stiles." Dad shed his "dear lord, fairies and wolves and my son is having too much awesome sex" face in favor of the "I'm your Sheriff, so help me, you will obey" face. "Derek will take you to Lydia's party and pick you up at midnight. I don't want an argument about this."

Stiles closed his mouth around the "but dad" and swallowed it with difficulty. This was not a face to argue with.

"You are not to consume alcohol, or drugs. You are not to touch anyone. Do not take off your clothes, and if anyone dares you to take your clothes off, you backtrack and pick a truth instead, even if they ask about your shameful secret, and then you lie. You got that?"

"I can't show up to a party with Derek!"

"Derek is not going to the party, he is merely escorting you there and back. And I want you to consider this a favor, because I was going to do it myself."

"Why?" Stiles sat down by the kitchen table, feeling suspiciously like someone poked all the fun out of his balloon. "What happened?"

"There's been another murder," his dad said. "A girl, in the woods. I don't want you to go alone."

Stiles nodded. "Okay." He pretended he didn't see the sheriff give him a suspicious glare, nor the look he shot Derek, nor the voiceless conversation happening over his head. Actually, no, screw that. "You guys know I can read your eyebrows, right?"

"Excuse me?" His dad said, raising said eyebrow in a patented paternal "you talking to me, punk?" look.

"Come on, I know this. I'm not stupid, dad."

"Yes, you are, son, and I am not above dangling Derek over your head to keep a lid on the stupidity. I was the one to find you after you decided to go whaling after you read Moby Dick, remember?"

Derek's eyebrows delivered a very vehement "Hey!" and then "Whaling? Seriously?"

"I was eleven!"

"But whaling?"

"Fine, laugh it up." Stiles frowned and hunched his shoulders, mildly annoyed.

"Am I laughing?" Derek's heavy hand landed on Stiles' shoulder, the weight of it driving his blunt fingernails into his t-shirt. "I'm not laughing."

"You better not be."

"Alright, my cue to go catch a nap," the sheriff announced. "For the record, I do my best to be understanding about rolling my brain out to wrap it around this fairy thing, but I do draw a line at having to watch it."

"What?" Stiles blinked, turned and nearly knocked the bottle of milk (which Derek caught mid-way to the floor, good reflexes, Derek) off the table, and shot up from his chair. "We weren't!"

"Sure you weren't," his dad said, clapping a hand on Derek's shoulder. "Of course not. Have fun at the party, don't make Derek arrest you."

"As if he would arrest me," Stiles muttered. "Actually, I could get behind the idea of handcuffs. Arrest me?" He held out his hands.

"I did not hear that. Actually, I wasn't in the room, and also my teenaged son did not just say that. Sheriff Stilinski out," Sheriff Stilinski said and departed in a haste suggesting something large, toothy and hairy was on his trail. Weird.

"Are there any invisible things here that only adults can see? Because I think something just chased my dad out."

"I'm sure he'll be fine," Derek said, rolling his eyes only a little. "Come on, do you want to get to that party or not?"

"You don't have to drive me, you know that. I can drive myself. I have a car and everything."

"How are you going to get back?"

"In the car. You know, the great big ugly thing outside? Smells like fried goods?"

"You know it's illegal to drive under the influence?"

"Dad said I'm not supposed to drink."

"Right, your father told you not to drink, what was I thinking, my evening is sorted, then, clearly." Derek slapped Stiles upside the head. "Of course you're going to have a drink, doofus. It's a party."

Stiles wasn't going to pretend that wasn't true. "I wasn't planning on getting wasted or nothing."

"Those things are rarely planned," Derek told him. His mouth curled over his pronounced canines and Stiles, damn it, felt hungry again. No, mind over matter, he told himself, he wasn't going to sex Derek up. He wasn't pathetic. Or hungry. Or nothing.

"You know," his treacherous mouth said, overriding his faithful loser of a brain – although wasn't all speech filtered through the brain, and wasn't it therefore playing the sympathy card, when it fact it was all the brain's fault? Damn conniving brain – "I am going to this party full of kids…"

Derek, bless his soul, didn't even blink. "We still have time and your dad just fell asleep. Come on."


	8. So cold, let me in at your window

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Stiles goes to Lydia's party, Derek gets to smell someone's unmentionables and Peter and Scott perform karaoke

It was a little bit funny, Stiles always figured himself for a party person. It wasn’t rocket science! He liked being around people, people were cool, he was a gregarious guy, he wasn’t a virgin any more, bring the party on! But now he was here, staring down the vibrating door, suddenly self-conscious. School was easy, he knew the rocky ground he was standing on at school, but a party? Lydia’s party?

“Hey, you gonna ring the doorbell or what?” someone behind him asked, then, without waiting for a reply, leaned over Stiles’ shoulder and pressed the button. “You look green."

“That’s rich coming from you, Greenberg,” Stiles muttered, but hey, it was Greenberg, good old Greenberg. That meant everything was fine. And, the doorbell had been rung, so double boo-yeah, everything was coming up Stiles.

Until the door opened and Jackson stared down at him, narrowing his eyes. “What are you doing here?” He sneered at Stiles.

“I invited him,” Lydia said, appearing suddenly from behind Jackson’s back, golden, beaming, radiant - Stiles started and nearly tripped, never mind that he was standing still. Lydia was glowing, glowing like a fucking glowstick, all fire no smoke. And sure, he’d seen her when the light hit her red hair around three p.m. in the middle of advanced calculus just right and her whole head became a giant halo of doom, but this was different. This was fire. This was joy given earthly form. “Hello Stiles.”

This was, Stiles thought rapidly searching through memory banks, a maenad in the midst of feeding. 

“Lydia. Thanks for having me,” he said and dipped in a low bow. Like, full-on bow, with a hand-swish and head dip, because what the hell, right? Laura said something about fairies and politeness and invitations.

“Well, come on in, then,” she said, taking Jackson by the arm and dragging him inside. 

“Dude,” Greenberg said, no doubt appreciating the view just as Stiles was. “When did you get in with Lydia?”  
Somehow, Stiles didn’t think “we’re both fairies, only faë in the school, we gotta stick together, apparently, also, I sleep with a werewolf on a regular basis” was going to cut it. No siree. So in the end he shrugged and mumbled something about math scores, and how Lydia took his 100% personally, friends, enemies and such. “Yup, pal, all kinds of people I can talk to at this thing. No problem,” he finished, when Greenberg’s yellow jersey melted into the crowd.

That was cool though. Greenberg melted into the crowd like a champion whenever anyone got onto the subject of math, sad but predictable. He had mad skills at disappearing. Guy was so good his mother was still looking for him in the yearbook class photo.

“Well done, Stiles, moving up the social ladder,” Stiles muttered and went looking for a coke. He had to get sneered at by no less than three cheerleaders, but then the fourth actually smiled as she handed him the coke when he asked, so progress! He found for himself a nice, deserted corner of the living room, coke in hand, propped the wall with his back and watched the party unfold.

*****

Derek enjoyed detective work in general, even if it was slightly above his pay grade. It kept him off the streets, at least, and being sexually harassed by the repeat parking offenders. It was uncanny how many times he had to tell Mrs. Robinson that parking in front of a hydrant was, a legitimate offense and that at this rate she’d be getting a note from the Sheriff very soon, and quite possibly a lawsuit to go with it, because really, he was an officer of the law.

“You done yet?” the Sheriff asked, stopping over Derek’s desk. 

“Almost.” How exactly does one put in words the unholy stench of Mrs. Robinson’s old Camaro? Hamsters had died in that car! “Do you need me?”

“I had this crazy thought,” Sheriff Stilinski said, turning around and beckoning Derek to follow. They passed the bullpen in silence, and it was only when they got to the evidence locker that he spoke again. “Laura could smell the dead body from a mile away.”

“Yes?”

“Can you do that too?”

“Of course.” Blood tended to be the loudest in his nose, but death has its way of poisoning even the best of smells.

“How good exactly is your sense of smell?”

Derek drew a blank. English language was shot on smell-words. “I can usually tell when was the last time you had curly fries,” he said slowly and takes a breath. “Wednesday.”

“I’m convinced.” The Sheriff opened the evidence locker and pulled a series of boxes off the shelf. “This is everything the victims had on them. Can you tell me if there’s anything common on them?”

“Uh.” Derek looked down at the boxes, up and the Sheriff and scratched his head. “That would be admissible?”

“I’m not after a warrant, just a lead. I’ll claim clairvoyance in court.”

Derek patted himself down in search of gloves, found none, but there was a box in the drawer of a desk. “Where’s Phil?”

“I sent him out for his lunch break. We have half an hour.”

Derek nodded, opened the first bag, closed his eyes and inhaled.

*****

Stiles glimpsed Lydia through the crowd, gyrating against Jackson on the impromptu dance floor, and slid diagonally across the living room in the opposite direction. The music was beginning to seep through his skin and into his bones, which should be odd, shouldn’t it, Stiles was about as musical as a log, but there it was, threaded through the dancers, binding the lot of them together, and in the middle of it all there was Lydia, astonishing, radiant Lydia, bright as a beacon, holding the threads in the palms of her hand and letting them twine. Their classmates whirled around them, forming a circle of which Lydia, only Lydia was the center - yeah Jackson was there two, but this was not astronomy, there was no center of mass to orbit. Jackson, too, was orbiting Lydia. Heh. Good to know that the asshole had some humanity in him.

Stiles brought his thumb to his mouth to chew on the glove Laura had him wear. Shit, his palms were sweaty. Leather was not a good thing to wear at a crowded party. He had a momentary flash of lace gloves, which would have been cooler in the oppressive heat, but would have made him look like an eighties era pop star, all he would have needed was a jean jacket with the arms cut off and a pleated mini skirt and leggings. He tried to scrub his hands through his hair but the damn gloves were in the way of that too. It wouldn’t matter if he took them off, maybe Laura was just like Peter was using him as a personal dress up toy. It wouldn’t matter, he told himself pulling them off, just for a minute, just to let his hands cool down. He’d put them back on. He would. He told himself stuffing them in his jacket. Although dipping his hands into Lydia’s pool, which was winter cold, sounded like an option.

****

Scott snarled and roared in the restraints that held him to the wall. After the restraints was a solid set of grates which were barred, so even if he did get free from the chains he wasn’t going anywhere. Peter was sat with him, music blaring from a bose stereo on a shelf on the wall, and a sewing machine purring in front of him, he was so nonplussed by Scott’s transformation he was loudly singing along with an artist no one had heard of in thirty years loudly and out of tune.

Scott had no idea what he was singing, only that it seemed to coincide with the howls but he was too far gone under the moon’s pull to do anything about it. The fabric was slowly moving under Peter’s hands, a soft yellow patterned with sunflowers, as he sang, “Just like his wife, But how she was before the tears, And how she was before the years flew by, And how she was when she was beau-tee-ful.” Scott just howled as Peter pulled the fabric out and shook it out to look at what he was doing.

Peter ignored the wolf in the cage ravening and screaming and threatening violence as he got out of his chair, swinging his hips as he moved to the ironing board to press out his seams, “all yours babooshka, babooshka, babooshka ya- ya.”

Scott just threw his head back and howled along with the singing.

Across the town, sat at a dinner table with the leader of the wolves of the Dark, his alpha cocked her ear, listening along the pack bonds to find why her new pup was howling. “Kate Bush, Peter?” she shook her head in dismay, and Deucalion, Dark wolf and living nightmare, burst out laughing over his dinner.

****

Lydia's house was swirling with the currents of her feeding, the very currents themselves twisting around on themselves and feeding into each other, and Stiles could see it, and he could almost taste them. He could feel them skidding over his tongue but he couldn't quite devour them. Harley was grinding against that asshole Bell with her head cast back and her breasts pressed against his chest as they practically frotted on the dance floor and Stiles could taste it, the salt of her sweat with the faintest taste of elderflowers and his stomach was an empty pit. He was hungry.

He could just step over to them, insinuate himself between them, let the music take him, let Harley rub herself off against his thigh as he kissed his way up her neck to her mouth and....

He stopped that thought dead and wiped his palms, sweaty again, off on the ass of his jeans and moved to the table where Lydia had left out things like pizza rolls and mini swiss rolls, still fresh from the freezer. He ripped open a twinkie wrapper with his teeth and bit down into the cake. Two short bites and it was gone, washed down with a mouthful of tropical fruit punch, and he was looking around the table for something else to eat.

"Something wrong, Stiles?" Alexis asked. She was in his math class, and she had a laugh like a donkey, but she had lovely hair, a rich chestnut red brown, not a patch on Lydia's strawberry blonde, but she had the currents of Lydia's feeding wrapped around her like a shawl, and there was a hickey on the side of her neck, with the faintest impression of teeth. "You don't look so hot? we're not going to need an ambulance for you, are we?" she made a joke about the last time Stiles had been at one of these parties and how they had to call the sheriff's department because Jenny had collapsed.

"Oh no," Stiles said, feeling a smile slither across his face, "that would be awful wouldn't it," he said and the words seemed to exist independantly of him, it was as if that part of him that knew what to do to get people into bed was active and it was speaking on his behalf, "I mean you have that dress you make so pretty, and your hair." He touched her head, feeling the softness of her loose hair against his bare fingers, "it just makes you shine."

He could feel it, that urge, the hunger, and there, on her lips, was the elderflower pop rocks taste he needed. Just a little kiss, it wouldn't matter would it, just a tiny little kiss.

****

With the bag sliced open Derek did his best to drive out all the other distractions in the room and just let the air in the bag tell him what he needed to know. He could smell the victim, the faintest tinge of blood, something sweet and chalky he didn't know, and the sharp sting of menthol. There was cold cream, which he recognised from Peter's night stand, and the tang of sweat. There was the aluminium rush of fear, that was normal, and cold, but there was something else, something pungent and dry, dusty and papery with a strong overhang of musk, he rolled it around in his nose trying to decide if there was anything he could say it at least smelled like it, but he was getting nothing.

"There's the smells I'm sure are her," Derek said at last, although it was probably no more than five minutes in total that he spent huffing at the bag like a glue sniffer. "Cold cream, deodorant, fabric conditioner, sweat, fear, blood."

"You can smell fear?" the sheriff asked.

"And bacon." Derek answered with a bit of a grin. He wasn't quite sure he should be teasing the sheriff yet, the way he would with the rest of the pack, he was still uncomfortable with him because he was his boss if nothing else.

The sheriff made a noise, "I don't know which is worse finding out, Stiles or Peter, Stiles just nags, Peter tries to find," there was a pause, "alternatives." He shuddered.

"It's because they care." Derek said, "Stiles cares for your health and Peter cares that he's making your life hell."

The Sheriff laughed again, a dry chuckle, "did you get anything, or should I just seal the bag up again?" he asked.

"There are two smells I don't recognise, one is sweet, with menthol and chalky, I've never encountered it so I can't say what it is." 

The sheriff paused for a moment, then he went to his desk and pulled out a dark brown bottle with a medical cap and white label advertising arnica liniment. He popped open the bottle with an oomph and a curse and the smell filled the room, similar but not the same as what was in the bag. "Is this it?" he asked.

"Close enough," Derek said, "what is that?"

"Liniment." The Sheriff told him, "it's for sore muscles, old people like me use it all the time. I get sore wrists from all the paperwork."

Derek raised an eyebrow like it was a surprise that such things happened, then shrugged it off. "There is another smell, and I don't know what it is, at all." He said, "something papery and musky, dry and old." The sheriff had no idea either, Derek could tell by the way he screwed up the corner of his mouth. "If it's on the other victim's things, then that's our perpetrator."

"So," the sheriff rested his chin on his templed hands, his elbows on his desk, "is it fae, or a librarian wearing too much hi-karate."

"Never smelt it before, Sheriff," Derek admitted, "so I can't be more specific than that. Did they find anything at the labs over in Hill Valley?"

"The usual." The sheriff admitted, "exactly what you'd find if you were stuck in the woods for three days dying of exposure and thirst, what I don't understand is why these people walked into the woods on their own, and just sat down and died, and why is it the only mark we can't explain by that, the scratches on their arms and legs, is the mark across their neck."

"Sorry, Sheriff, I'm as lost as you are." Derek admitted.

"I think we've got to the point, Derek, where you can call me Harry." 

Derek wilted like a flower, and flicked his eyes to the moon through the window, it was fat and full. "okay." He said with the vehemence of someone who was not only agreeing against their will but would never actually do it. 

"We can write up what we've learned, attribute it to the lab, and then get the other evidence boxes out and see if they all smell the same, okay." The sheriff told him, waving off Derek's clear dismay at using his boss' first name, Stiles not withstanding.

\---

Scott pulled at the chains, reaching forward and howling, "oh, shush you," Peter said as he pulled the yellow sundress over the mannequin's head. It was unfinished, the hem still hanging loose and none of the top stitching that would shape the neck in place because he needed to pin that on the mannequin. "You're clearly not appreciating one of the few musical geniuses of the last hundred years." Scott roared at him, the chains rattling, "and there is simply no need to make all that fuss." He cocked his ear, "I love this song." He put his waist around the mannequin, "out on the wiley, windy moor, we rolled and fell in green."

Scott just howled louder.

\---

"Oh, there you are." Lydia said looping her arm through Stiles, "I was looking all over for you." Alexis' mouth looked like a soft slice of fruit that Stiles just wanted to lick, but Lydia was insistent, and when he turned to her he felt his eyes flash in anger. "You don't mind if I steal him away, do you, Lexi?" she asked, cinnamon sweet and poison bitter.

"I," Alexis started but Lydia cut her off with a smile, 

"Thanks, sweetheart." She dragged him away. "And you," all of a sudden there was a rasp to her voice, something dark and dangerous that promised violence, "are going home."

Stiles licked his lips, he could still see the viscous eddies of desire swirling through the party, "yeah," he said and it sounded like defeat even to him, he was just so hungry, "I think that's a good idea."

"You don't shit where you eat, Stiles," she said and pinched him hard, "if you don't have enough control then you're not coming back. I like Lexi," she said, "you are not going to eat her."

"Just a little taste," Stiles managed, his voice was sharp like razor blades and gravel. "Just one little kiss."

Lydia reached up and kissed him full on the mouth, and she had that wonderful elderflower and pop rocks taste, then she pulled away. "I've called you a cab," she maintained as she guided him through the teens, most of whom were now grinding agianst each other, "you're going home."

He felt drunk, watching the eddies of abandon and desire throughout the room.

"Stilinski," Greenberg lurched into view, "are you alright? You don’t look so hot."

He could hear them all laughing, and the room was swirling, "I," he started and reached out to catch his balance, jerking away from Lydia and whatever it was she had done to him, his palm landed against Greenberg's bare arm, and Greenberg shuddered and the eddies went from cool blue to hot red as Greenberg came in his pants.

\---

Laura didn't stop at the kitchen when she came in, she went straight to the basement and blinked at what she saw, Peter was dancing with a mannequin in a half finished yellow sundress as he sang "Heathcliff, it's me, it's Cathy," and Scott was gnawing on something in his cage, holding it tight with both hands and using his beta tongue to try and scoop out whatever was in the centre, and then stopping to gnaw on the outside.

"I didn't see a thing." She said turning on her heel. 

Peter just looked over her shoulder and went on dancing. "Let me in at your window."

"Wait a minute," she said turning back to the basement, "did you give Scott a dog toy?" It clearly was one, now she looked, and appeared to be stuffed with peanut butter, and the boy was squatting trying to get the treat from the rubber cone.

"Heathcliff, it's me, it's Cathy come home, I'm so cooo-ooo-old, let me in at your window."

Laura had no answer for that - so she just went on to bed.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Lost Boys Promo Poster](https://archiveofourown.org/works/758582) by [AlphaFeels](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlphaFeels/pseuds/AlphaFeels)




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